


The Deal of a Lifetime

by Eli_Emu, QueenOfPentalcles (Eli_Emu)



Series: The Deal of a Lifetime [1]
Category: Borderlands (Video Games), Detroit: Become Human (Video Game)
Genre: Android AU, Android Jack, Angst, Drinking, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, Fluff, Gen, M/M, Masturbation, Musicals, Pining, Rhys shameing, Roommates, So I'm not overly fond of Yvette, Unwanted Houseguest, Vaughn is a nerd, What am I doing, android body horror, can't write Rhys for the life of me, drop out Timothy, fixing a robot, i hate my life, idk how much that comes acros tho, no hyperion, so many android facts, so many musicals, so much name dropping, sue me, symptoms of emotional neglect?, weak stomach
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-06-28
Updated: 2018-08-28
Packaged: 2019-05-30 00:33:24
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 8
Words: 25,437
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15085142
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Eli_Emu/pseuds/Eli_Emu, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Eli_Emu/pseuds/QueenOfPentalcles
Summary: Timothy and Vaughn get the opportunity of a lifetime, the possibility of a free fixer-upper android. Sure, they both have no money to even really fix an android, with Vaughn going to school and Timothy trying to pay back his loans after dropping out, but how hard can it be, really?---Set in the Detroit universe. You don't really need to play the game to read this. It's basically just an Android AU with a bit of spice.





	1. The Things you do for Friendship

**Author's Note:**

> I really wanted to explore these two stories in an not so obvious crossover, in specific the ugly side of android consumption and in Timothy's POV because...I just love Timothy.  
> (And in case you haven't played Detroit:  
> CyberLife is the company that builds Androids.  
> Thirium: Android blood. It's blue.  
> Androids have a white plastic outer shell covered with synthetic skin.  
> The Pit is a level in the game, but that's just what I called it. It's called the junkyard in the game. )  
> Honestly, this is 90% borderlands characters, so fret not.

“I just got a great tip off of Yvette!”

 

Timothy yelped as his roommate, Vaughn, barged into his room, nearly dropping his aging laptop off his bed. “Jesus! What…?”

 

“Yvette. You know, best friend who used to be my roommate before her rich uncle got her that job at CyberLife?”

 

Oh. Right. That best friend, who Timothy had only met a couple of times and somehow ended up paying for her meals. “Okay…” Seriously, there was always something about her that made Timothy uncomfortable. Like, sizing-him-up-for-dinner uncomfortable.

 

“So you know how they have special places to dump androids, right, so the thirium doesn’t pollute the environment?” 

 

Seriously, Timothy had _way_ too many creepy pastas about The Pits to pretend otherwise. “Yeah…?”

 

“Well, apparently their last driver quit on them on the job and dumped the bodies, like, two blocks from here!”

 

Timothy did not like where this was going. “So you wanna-“ get murdered by rogue androids at 11 o’ clock at night. Fuck, but Timothy really had to stop reading those fucking things. “-what? Nab some parts and sell it to the tech kids?”

 

“Bro.” Shit, when Vaughn got that look in his eyes, it was either time to run or spend an hour nodding along to some nerdy mathy shit that went over Timothy’s head. “We could get a freaking android!”

 

Timothy paused. Okay, sure, _technically_ Timothy was morally opposed to androids. It was easy to be morally opposed to the things when you were always too poor to afford one. But hell, if Vaughn was taking on so many classes that his scholarships barely covered the rent and Timothy wasn’t working in a food truck, barely staying on top of paying back his futile student loans. Not to mention they were two young, nerdy guys, too tired to bother picking up a tiny apartment that no girl was ever going to see. Seriously though, the idea of someone else cooking him food was enough for him to overlook the innate fear of waking up in the middle of the night to an android staring creepily at him. “If they’re dumped…I guess they don’t belong to anyone, anyway.”

 

“Great!” Vaughn grabbed Timothy’s old school bag. “We gotta hurry or we don’t know what’s going to be left.”

 

\---

 

Which, as it turns out, isn’t much; Lots of limbs, a few torsos which will give Timothy nightmares for days, a handful of just…bits, and a couple of gallons of the blue stuff that has Timothy hurling. It was an alien mess, all white and grimy and blue, but they were unmistakably bodies; broken, bleeding bodies. Timothy doesn’t know how long he just stands there, trying not to throw up again, before Vaughn's voice interrupts his horror.

 

“Hey! This one made it!” Vaughn is kneeling victoriously in the mound of bodies, hands stained blue. Timothy tentatively inches over to help Vaughn clear away the other, uh, bits, trying not to step on unresponsive fingers. He almost can’t believe what he’s doing, helping Vaughn nudge a torso out of the way, but there is no way Timothy is going to leave someone buried under _that_. His good will lasts until they turn the android over _and it has no fucking face!_

 

It’s all a bit of a blur after that. Vaughn insists on taking the damn thing home, even though it is literally made of nightmares and you can see its _fucking robot brains_. He makes Vaughn carry it, which the little guy does with minimal effort, somehow finding the willpower to take full advantage of the gym membership that’s part of his tuition. If the guy wasn’t so hopeless, Timothy would be pretty envious of the guy. He still probably should be; with brains like that, Vaughn is probably going to stumble into a relationship with a hot bimbo and hell, she’d probably stay for the abs.      

 

 The creepy thing twitches when they toss it on the couch and Timothy screams, leaving Vaughn to do whatever tests he fucking feels like. Timothy’s probably going to have a dead roommate by the morning, but it’s not Timothy’s fault if his friend has unbeknownst suicidal tendencies.

 

\---

 

He still has a roommate, the next morning. He also still has a horror show on his couch, which now has vibrant blue stains to go with various other colors that came with it. The freak show has developed skin overnight, but even this is fucking weird. There are strange lumps and dips under the tan skin that are just frankly unsettling. There a lot of things that Timothy could say about it, like “Couldn’t you just have got a dog?” or “Did you really have to bring it home?” or “How the fuck did you survive the night?”

 

What Timothy settles on is “How do you manage to be more fit than an android?”

 

Vaughn blinks at him, and ignores, like normal, any mention of his Greek god abs. “I got in touch with Rhys last night.”

 

Timothy nearly fumbles his coffee mug, trying not to remember that frankly _horrible_ blind date that Vaughn had set up for them, the one that Rhys thought was with Timothy’s lab partner Stacy. Not that that relationship had lasted, but neither of them wanted to point out to Rhys what a dumb fuck he could be. Timothy had been secretly glad when Rhys had fucked off to Detroit to intern with CyberLife for a year, but always felt like a dick when he saw how much Vaughn missed his friend. “Uh huh.”

 

“Looks like we basically need a voice box, audio and visual receivers, a housing unit, and a couple of gallons of blue blood. Rhys said it’s a H6900, which was pretty popular back in the day and the parts are pretty cross-compatible. Only problem is,” Vaughn sighed, pulling off his glasses and rubbing his eyes. “if we don’t hurry, the thirium levels will drop to critical levels.”

 

Timothy frowned, looking at the busted up android. “Look, man, I know that, even if we did buy the parts, we’d be getting the thing practically for free…” And Vaughn was right, when he could rip his eyes off of the gaping hole, it did look like it was in pretty good shape. “but we just paid rent and I dunno about you, but I kinda need what I got left to eat.”

 

“Well…” Timothy knew that tone. Timothy hated that tone. Timothy already knew he was going to regret this. “what if we don’t buy them?”

 

\---

 

When Vaughn outlined his plan Timothy flat out refused. While, between the two of them, Rhys got the pair into more trouble, Vaughn had his share of bad ideas. Surprisingly, the little guy was normally pretty convincing, and sure, most of Vaughn’s ideas ranged from hair-brained to massively boring, but Timothy usually found himself being dragged along. But there was no fucking way Timothy was going to be dragged to The Pits for an android. Sure, androids were cool and as a rule Timothy didn’t want them to be hurt, but that still didn’t mean that they equaled a human life.

 

Vaughn had pulled out all of the punches, even calling Timothy a coward, but he was having none of it. That was until he ducked out his room for an energy drink that night to find Vaughn pilling up gear with a determined look on his face. So maybe Timothy was a fucking coward, but he wasn’t, in a million years, going to let one of his very few friends get ripped apart by rabid androids.

 

It was…it was worse than anything Timothy had imagined, anything he had read. The stories didn’t even need to lie; the glitched out moans and the scrape of metal against metal filled the air. Dim shapes lurched in the shadowy depths, eyes and chests glowing faintly. The sharp tang of rancid thirium wafted out of The Pit with its own sent of decay. Even Vaughn was looking pale.

 

The plan was to go in, lower themselves on ropes, grab whatever of the required parts they find from whatever models and book it the hell out of there.

 

“Do we…Do we really got to do this?” Timothy squeaked as Vaughn approached the edge of The Pit.

 

Vaughn squared his shoulders. “Look, CyberLife androids are the first mechanical creations to pass a Turing test. If we don’t do this…that android is going to die.”

 

“And what about us?!”

 

Vaughn looked down into The Pit and Timothy could see through his friend’s bravado. “If it’s as dangerous as they say we’ll get out of there. If we stick together…we _should_ make it out okay. I mean, they are broken, right? I mean, they wouldn’t be here otherwise, right?”

 

Timothy nodded. “Right. “

 

He really can’t believe he’s following Vaughn down, not wanting to put his hands or feet anywhere near the piles of limbs, but having no other handholds. The walls of The Pit are literally made of the bones of the dead, but fuck if all Timothy can concentrate on is the slow climb down.

 

That is until an arm twitches under his hand and shoots out to grab his shirt. Timothy screamed, trying to push the hand away and slipping, falling and bringing Vaughn down with him.

 

They crash to the bottom in a tangle of limbs. Timothy yelps as a dismembered head swims into his vision, scrambling off Vaughn and away from the object.

 

Vaughn sees the head, looking like he’s going to throw up, but grabs the thing and shoves it into his backpack.

 

“Seriously?” Timothy squeaks.

 

“It’s what we’re here for.”

 

They scramble near the rope for parts. They snag a few parts just lying around, but sometimes they have to cut bits off of dead androids. Most of the ones they find have no blue blood in them, but the ones that do spurt the stuff. Timothy can’t help but look over his shoulder. He can see, barely, the shadowy figures shuffling just at the edge of his vision.

 

“We almost done?” Timothy whimpered, trying to keep his stomach in order, his face dripping in the blue blood.

 

Vaughn looked in their bags. “Don’t have as many eyes as I’d like, but-“

 

A sudden metallic screeching filled the air, the sound of plastic bodies clacking together setting them both off. “We gotta get out of here.”

 

“They might have better parts?” Vaughn said, breathing fast.

 

“Yeah, and they’re probably stronger too.”

 

An android stepped out into their line of sight, one arm missing, the other hanging on by a couple of wires. It’s good eye latched onto them and it let out and garbled screech. The thing started to charge.

 

They ran. They hadn’t gotten more than a half a dozen feet from the rope, but every second felt like an eternity.

 

Vaughn scrambled to the top first, hauling Timothy out. They ran, barely pausing at the top, until they flung themselves into Timothy’s beat up car.

 

They sat there for a while, panting rapidly, Timothy shaking too much to even get the car started. “Do you think,” Timothy said after a long moment. “you think it followed us up?”

 

Vaughn turned pale. “We should have- we didn’t grab the rope! We should-“ Vaughn blinked. “It didn’t have arms.”

 

“What?”

 

“It didn’t have arms, Tim!” Vaughn started laughing. “Though it was going to kill us but it didn’t have arms!”

 

After a bewildered moment Timothy joined in to.

 

“I’ve never felt so alive!” Vaughn crowed. “You think we should-“

 

“Nope!” Timothy interrupted, starting up the car. “And I am never, repeat, never letting you talk me into anything for the next year!”

 

\---

 

“You actually went in there?” Yvette asked over the speaker, obviously disgusted.

 

“It’s not like we could afford the parts.” Timothy shot back angrily. He was exhausted when they got back last night, but he couldn’t sleep, not with _that_ playing on repeat whenever he closed his eyes. “As it is, I’m not sure we can afford the blue blood.”

 

“Hmmm….” They could hear keys clacking on the other end. “I should be able to get some sent your way, but none of that matters if you can’t get a new face.”

 

They had tried, that morning, to plug the few compatible processors in, and while the audio one went in fine, everything else sort of flopped around and came unplugged without a housing. Timothy was still feeling a little green about the whole thing.

 

“Look, the actual mock-up of any android’s face is patented and even if I could get that to you, I would get into a whole heap of trouble.” ‘More trouble than you’re worth,’ Timothy translated bitterly. “What I can give you is the dimensions of the H6900 face and attachment ports, but you’re going to have to get a face and have the thing made. Not to mention, fit it into the preexisting damage.”

 

“Doesn’t CyberLife have some sort of customization thing we could use?” Vaughn asked, clearly just as frustrated as Timothy.

 

“If you can’t afford the thirium, you can’t afford that, even with my employee discount.” Timothy hated it, but Yvette had a point.

 

“So that’s it then?” Timothy asked. “All of that…and it’s going to die anyway?”

 

“No.” Vaughn shook his head. “No! We’re so close!” Timothy watched as Vaughn started pacing. “My school has an art department, maybe I can get access to a 3-D printer.”

 

“They still have those things?” Timothy asked. “I guess artists hate change.” If he had to count how many times he helped put on productions of Hamlet, he was going to

scream.

 

“That’s not going to help if you don’t have a face.” Yvette pointed out.

 

“Well…” Vaughn looked at the android. “It’s a guy, so I guess it’s either your face or mine, bro.”

 

“What?” Timothy squeaked. “No, no, no, _no_! It’s _your_ pet project. I’m not having an android walk around with my _face_! That’s fucking creepy!”

 

“Oh, so it wouldn’t be creepy to have it walk around with Vaughn’s face?”

 

Timothy looked at the android again. He tried to picture Vaughn’s on it. “Okay, yeah, not much better.”

 

“Hey!”

 

“Sorry, bro, but I don’t think you’re supposed to be that tall. Or that tan.“

 

Vaughn deflated. “Good point.”

 

“Good. Now that that’s settled, I’ll send you over the dimensions. I’m actually curious to see what Tim looks like when he hits the gym.”

 

“Hey!”

 

\---

 

Apart from Vaughn scanning his face, Timothy kind of forgets about it. Sure, he’s picked up almost every spare shift he can; every time he thinks about how much everything would have cost if they bought it, Timothy gets hives, and he figures that maybe having a little extra something in the bank for emergencies would be nice. Really, though, anything to never have to go to The Pit again.

 

He doesn’t think anything about it when Vaughn asks him to pick up some parts from the hardware store; something is always breaking, and sure, a lot of their stuff is ugly as hell, but they’ve put off buying a lot of new things so there’s that.

 

Of course, coming home and watching Vaughn carefully cutting around a strange, rubbery version of his face isn’t serial killer or anything. Vaughn doesn’t even really yell at him when Timothy screams and the scissors nearly rip into a cheek.

 

It’s…honestly the surrealist thing, helping his best friend finagle a Halloween mask of himself onto a fucking freak show. Neither of them is really handy, and when they step back, it’s all too apparent; the ‘skin’ is completely the wrong shade and held on by epoxy and fucking brackets and the eyes are two different colors. He’s just about to turn away, completely freaked as Vaughn shoved his hand into the androids mouth to install the voice box, when he sees it. It’s just barely a flicker of movement, the twitch of its- his- eyes, as it watches Vaughn.

 

“Holy shit!”

 

Vaughn jumped, withdrawing his hand and glaring at Timothy. “Bro?! Seriously, I know you’ve got a thing about androids, but is that really-“

 

“It’s already on, Vaughn.” The android locks eyes with him and Timothy can’t fucking breathe. He’s seen and interacted with androids before like anybody and been creeped out by the emptiness in their eyes. These eyes aren’t empty. There’s an intensity in them he hasn’t seen from most people, but it isn’t threatening. Calculating, weary, but Timothy is pretty sure he isn’t going to die within the next ten seconds. Probably.

 

“Woah!” Vaughn scrambles back as the android slowly rights itself, lounging on the couch like he hasn’t been in danger of dying on the thing. It’s weird to see the android with his face, but with those eyes, with the two tone skin, with just the way the android is wearing it, Timothy almost feels like he’s wearing the _android’s_ face.       

 

“Vaughn.” The android says in a deep rumble, slowly, as if testing out his new voice. “Tim.” The mismatched eyes flick back to Timothy. “It appears like I owe you a favor.” Somehow, Timothy felt like the past week was going to be a cakewalk compared to whatever this android has in store of them. “The name’s Jack.” The grin was easily the most terrifying thing Timothy had ever seen.

 


	2. No Such Thing as a Free Lunch

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Timothy and Vaughn are stuck with an android, one that is more likely than not going to kill them both in their sleep. But...there might be some benefits. If you squint. Or maybe if you have Stockholm Syndrome.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In case you haven't played Detroit:  
> CyberLife is the company that builds Androids.  
> Thirium: Android blood. It's blue.  
> Androids have a white plastic outer shell covered with synthetic skin.  
> Red Ice: general drug.  
> EDIT: okay, this used to be a separate story, but I realized by the time I hit chapter 3 that there wasn't much need for that.

“What the hell, man? I mean, okay, like, I _know_ I can be a little bit weird when it comes to androids, but,“ Timothy gestured wildly to the door. “he, like, walked right out of those fucking horror stories.”

Timothy and Vaughn are hiding out in Vaughn’s room after the android –Jack- asked about the thirium. Sure, the guy looked a little unsteady, but he wasn’t even hangover-level bad.

“Rhys…uh…I thought he was just being paranoid.” Vaughn is as white as a sheet. God, Timothy _knew_ that Yvette was going to be his downfall, just not in the form of a demented android. “He said there were rumors. Strange error reports coming in from androids that he’s had to debug. That the programing team is being monitored in case they leak…something.”

“What…” Timothy swallowed. “What kind of rumors?”    

“Androids having their own free will and, uh, _not_ liking how we’ve treated them.”

“Oh fuck,” Timothy whimpered. “What are we going to do? I don’t think either of us could kick him out if he didn’t wanna go.”

“We can tell Yvette.” Vaughn said determinedly. “We can- we can call Yvette or Rhys and they can get CyberLife to send out someone to pick him up.”

“And, what? Get ourselves taken as hostages when he’s figured out we’ve snitched on him?”

“I’d only need one of you.” The android calls out from the other room. Both humans froze. “Vaughn might get more sympathy, but this face ain’t half bad, even if you did go at it like a pair of monkeys on Red Ice.” The asshole had the audacity to laugh.

Vaughn and Timothy creeped out of the room, watching android carefully.

“Okay, then, uh,” Vaughn asked, hiding behind Timothy. “What do you want?”

The android watched them, amusement curling at his lips. “I’ve got four months before my little plan can be enacted. Four months, then I don’t have to see either of you fuckers again. You stay quiet, and I don’t have to be a _horror story_.” Jack grinned at Timothy and Timothy took a step back, squashing Vaughn’s toes.

The humans looked at each other.

“C’mon, kiddos, let’s be honest; you don’t have a fucking choice.”

\---

Living with the android is…weird. Timothy had no illusions of Jack even being moderately helpful, but for not having many basic needs, the guy is a fucking pig. He doesn’t even seem to do anything, stealing Timothy’s laptop, combing through his files, as far as Timothy can tell, but there’s somehow a bigger mess wherever the guy ends up.

\---

The first time they had to leave him alone in the apartment, Timothy and Vaughn was understandably nervous, but Jack just rolled his mismatched eyes at them. “What am I gonna do? Run away? Dig through you loser’s porn?”  

When Timothy gets back, however, there are documents stabbed all over the wall, surrounding an image of wings and Timothy’s laptop open on Jack’s lap.

“What are you-?” Timothy yells, trying to yank a fucking knife out of the wall where it was pinning some sort of map.

Jack was on him in a second, crushing his hand and grinning evilly at Timothy. “It’s not like you're getting that deposit back anyway. Biggest fucking scam in the book.” The android turned away, as if Timothy wasn’t going to try again. Of fucking course he wasn’t, but the implication was still humiliating.

“Can I have my laptop back?” Timothy asked, resignedly, rubbing feeling back into his hand.

“Nope.” Jack said, furiously typing.

Well, Timothy needed a shower anyway. Maybe Jack wouldn’t hear his grumbling under the spray. Maybe.

     ---

  It’s hard to think of Jack as an android; the guy’s got weird habits and that terrifying presence and an easy dominance that has both Timothy and Vaughn scrambling around him. Honestly, they just kinda try to pretend he’s not living with them, but for Timothy it’s hard to pretend, as Jack has claimed Timothy’s only source of entertainment. Vaughn, bless him, spends more time in his college’s library than at the apartment now. Which, you know, Timothy might be at too, if he didn’t feel ashamed stepping on campus for giving up on his inconsequential dreams.

So Timothy picks up more shifts; anything to get away from the android that’s living on their sofa.

\---

It’s something of a shock on payday to find an extra thousand in his bank account. Sure, he’s made a ton more money than normal, so much so that he’s planned on dragging Vaughn out to an arcade, but he doesn’t recognize any of the account that are sending him money.

“Hey,” Jack gestures at him when Timothy gets home. “I need you to buy me this on your day off tomorrow.” Jack had a fairly good laptop pulled up in the browser. It’s a hell of a lot better than Timothy’s.

“What?” But suddenly the mysterious money is beginning to make sense.

“The money’s all legal and above the board.“ Jack says with an eye roll. “it’s in the name of Jack Lawrence who _conveniently_ shares your bank account. Seriously. You get me that laptop so I can dump this hunk of junk, and the rest goes to rent.” Timothy must be staring, because Jack looks at him like he has the brains of a goldfish. “Like hell am I going to owe you any more than I have to.” Jack glares at him for good measure. “Fuck off.”

Timothy retreats back to his room, but it’s with a strangely light feeling; the notion of having both spare money in the bank and his laptop back…it’s possible Timothy might have low standards.

\---

“So you’ve got no idea how Jack got the money?” Vaughn asked, tapping away at an old arcade machine and deftly shoving Pringles into his mouth.

“I thought he just fucked around…” Timothy mused, leaning against the aging machine. “guess I was wrong.”

“You reckon it’s blackmail?”

“Honestly, it’s Jack; it could be money from killing old women and I’d believe it.”

“And you have no idea what he’s been doing on your computer?”

Timothy only got the thing back today, Jack grumbling at how long it took to set up the damn things. “Nope. It looks like no one’s used it for the past two weeks. It’s not even that he’s deleted all of my history; it’s still all there, just not a damn thing he’s done and I know he was using my account because I saw my background.“ Okay, so maybe that dumb kitten meme could be found anywhere, but Timothy had gotten attached to the image. “I guess he used some android tech magic on it.”

“Androids don’t have tech magic.” Vaughn grumbled. “Seriously, don’t you know anything about androids?”

“Does anyone? I mean, if we told anyone we were practically under house arrest because of an _android_ they’d call us nuts.” Timothy paused, sipping at his soda. “ _I’d_ call us nuts.”

“Look,” Vaughn said with a sigh as he lost the game. “We only have fourteen more weeks. I mean, sure, we might have a robot uprising on our hands,” Timothy tried not to think about the ever-growing complicated mess on the living room wall. “but at least then he’d have more important people to bother.”

“Where’s the guy who wanted to save an android because he ‘might be dying’?”

“Well, maybe he went away when he realized that you and your conspiracy theories were right the whole time.” Vaughn sighed and Timothy didn’t like the defeated note in his friend’s voice. “I just…I want him gone…but I’m not sure I want him out there, either; not when he has whatever plan is going to go off.” Vaughn rubbed his eyes and Tim knew their carefree evening was gone. “I should have listened to you, but all I wanted was to skip out on some housework. Guess that teaches me a lesson.”

Timothy shook his head. “I guess we should be glad he’s paying rent.”

Vaughn snorted, but it was a pitiful imitation of his usual mirth. “If he keeps it up, he’ll be better than Yvette.”

\---

Timothy has spent the better part of four weeks ignoring the mess of papers on the wall, but, dare he say it, he’s getting used to Jack. Sure, the guy is menacing and quick to leave a threat hanging unspoken in the air, but it’s not like Jack’s actually _done_ anything. He’s not pleasant, but he’s far from the worst roommate Timothy’s ever had.

Timothy wonders how much he really hates humans to stage a coup this intricate. Timothy wasn’t sure at first, but he thinks those weird lumps and bumps under Jack’s skin are scars. Timothy doesn’t like admitting it, but he’s seen a lot of the bad parts of humanity; he can’t imagine what it must be like if you aren’t even considered human.

\---

“What’s that symbol mean?” Timothy asks one day, drunk off his socks after a particularly rough shift. He’s looking at the one bit of paper that hasn’t changed; the drawing of wings in the middle. Timothy fuzzily notices the silence, but his eyes trace the mechanical sweep of the pen on paper.

“What do you think it means, Tim Tams?” As always, there’s a hint of a threat, but Timothy’s too off his head to care.

“Salvation?” Timothy hummed. “Freedom? Dunno, really; I’m an atheist.”

Jack is quiet for a long moment, which Timothy is cool with. He traces the lines and looks at the addresses and short hand. He feels, distinctly that whatever this maze is will go right over his head even if he was completely sober. Hell, it might go over Vaughn’s head and the guy is a freaking genius.

“Angel…it means Angel. So…I guess you’re not wrong.” Timothy sways to look at Jack, but the android just sighs. “Get the fuck to bed before you vomit on my wall.”

Timothy does retreat to his room, but doesn’t quite forget Jack’s words as he leads the android to believe; he’s not sure what Jack would do, but he isn’t quite sure what the android means, either.

\---

Jack likes to pretend he’s just as prickly after what Timothy calls ‘The Angel Incident’ in his head, but it all seems for show. Vaughn thinks Timothy is crazy, but Vaughn spends hours nose deep in books about math, so what does he know? Timothy can’t really pinpoint exactly what changed about Jack’s attitude; the guy is the same old asshole. Still…the permanent unspoken threat is gone. Maybe he doesn’t seem as on guard all the time, maybe he doesn’t glare so much, but it’s enough of a change that Timothy doesn’t _quite_ work himself to the bone. Honestly, at this point, with three people paying rent, they might be able to afford a TV. While Jack isn’t so bad, Timothy still doesn’t want to spend that much time together in the same room, even if they are ignoring each other.

\---   

Timothy doesn’t ask where Jack gets the money, but cash keeps piling up in his bank account, an amount that Timothy doesn’t touch except for rent money. It’s not quite out of fear, though he still does know that Jack could tear him in half if he had a mind to, but out of something like…respect? Now that he knows Jack isn’t fucking around, it’s kinda obvious how hard he works, between whatever mysterious job he’s found himself and his secret project. Timothy still doesn’t like the asshole, but he can appreciate an extra pair of hands generating income and who the fuck cares if they’re made of plastic.

\---

He doesn’t like Jack, but he’s getting used to him and surprisingly, Timothy thinks the reverse might also be true. 

\---


	3. Liquid Honesty

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Timothy is questioning, Vaughn is certain of Timothy's insanity, Jack is an asshole, and Yvette is chaotic neutral at best.

“Okay, what are you hiding?”

So maybe Timothy’s case isn’t helped by the fact that he slammed the apartment door in Yvette’s face.

“Dammit, Timothy!” Yvette yells at him.

“What are you even doing here?!”  

“I used to live here, asshole!”

Timothy’s eyes darts around the apartment. Not only is the place a complete disaster, but Jack’s looking at him from the sofa like he’s a fucking idiot. God, Timothy wishes Vaughn was here right now. “The, uh, place is a mess!”

“Don’t you lie to me! I _know_ you’ve got an android!”

“Yeah, but, uh,” He casts an apologetic look at Jack. “he’s broken.”

Before Yvette can respond, Jack is pushing Timothy out of the way and hauling Yvette in with them. It must say something about the whole situation that Timothy doesn’t even let out a whimper.

If he were human, Jack would have slammed the door and smashed Yvette against the wall. With a move so quick and deft, Jack quietly shuts the door, and has Yvette silently shoved against the wall so quick Timothy barely blinked. Of course, her feet are dangling about a foot in the air and the hands that hold and silence Yvette look like they’ll leave bruises. Also, there’s that terrifying grin that kept Timothy up for two weeks straight.  

“Hello, Yvette.” Jack’s tone is laced with satisfaction and violence. She struggles weakly, terror shining in her frantically searching eyes. “Oh, c’mon. I’m not _unreasonable_.” There’s a mirth in his voice, honey laced with cyanide. He watched her struggle, a smirk tugging at his lips, as Timothy watched helplessly. “After all, I have a little proposal for you.”    ~~~~

There is still fear in her eyes, but that calculating look is back.

Jack‘s grin gets even wider. “Ya listening, sugar? ‘Cause I’m only going to say this once.” In an instant, Jack’s tone turns dark. “You don’t say one fucking peep about me or anything that goes down in this apartment to your little buddies at CyberLife. You squeal…and you’re bosses’ll hear about a _sweet_ little deal you have going on with this Vasquez fellow.” Real fear enters Yvette’s eyes. “You got that?” Jack’s eyes flick momentarily to the door before he watches Yvette nod. “Cool.” And he unceremoniously drops her to the floor.

Jack has just folded himself back onto the couch when Vaughn comes rushing in, blinking at Yvette leaning on Timothy. He sees the moment Vaughn gets it, and is too busy listening to his heart hammer in his ears to hear whatever excuse Vaughn uses to rush them out the door.  

\---

“I can’t believe that android’s made you both his bitch.”

Timothy would glare, but, fuck it, she’s right. Vaughn sips noisily at his soda, shoulders slumped in defeat. “Well, what would you have done?” Vaughn grumbled.

“I didn’t see _you_ fighting him.” Timothy mumbled.

“This is my fault.” Yvette sighs and that’s how Timothy knows just how fucked the situation is. “At least Rhys isn’t here; he’d probably have slept with the thing.”

“Yvette!” Vaughn squeaked.

“I love the guy, but you _know_ he’s a slut; it’s why you put an ad on craigslist instead of rooming with him.”      

“That’s-“ Completely true, and both Timothy and Vaughn know it. “besides the point.” Vaughn finishes lamely. He puts his head in his hands. “I’m just glad Rhys gets back after Jack leaves. I already can’t deal with the guy and that’s-no.”

“So you’re not going to say anything?” Timothy asks Yvette, desperate not to think of _that_ mental image.

“And put my neck in danger? Look, maybe he can do half of what he says, maybe he can’t. Either way,” Yvette pauses, popping a fry into her mouth. “if he does commit this android uprising you’re so worried about…maybe I don’t want to be on his hit list.”

It’s calculated and selfish and Timothy wishes he could hate her for that. Then again, that’s Yvette through and through, which is why they’re not friends, but...look, she’s done a lot over the couple of years he’s known her, but if he could reasonably get Vaughn out, even if it did cause a robot uprising…well, Timothy would probably take that chance.

He’d probably feel a bit more sympathetic if she hadn’t bummed her lunch off of Vaughn, though.    

\---

Timothy wonders if Jack ever stops working. He’s typing away whenever Timothy makes coffee in the morning, like he is now, and he’s still frowning at the screen when Timothy retreats to his room to watch Netflix until he passes out.

“Why are you staring at me?” Jack asks irritably as Timothy leans against the kitchen counter. The android didn’t even look up, but Timothy is used to it at this point. “Mad I scared your little friend?”

Timothy blinks. He honestly didn’t think Jack gave a fuck. Okay, he’s still not sure, but the question is _almost_ an admission of guilt. “No.” That gets Jack to look up. Fuck, but Timothy needs more coffee for this. “I don’t even like Yvette; she’s Vaughn’s friend. I mean, you’ve scared the shit out of him, which I don’t like, but…it’s not like that changes much.” Timothy says with a shrug. “If she made a deal with some asshole…I don’t like it, but she chose to it.”

Jack watches him for a long moment, and, sure, Timothy knows Jack isn’t going to hurt him, but his intense gaze still makes him squirm. “I practically strangle a woman in your house and your response is ‘I don’t like her?’”

“Some people just don’t get along!” Timothy protests, but it sounds a little desperate, even to him. “I dunno, it’s just…sometimes she seems to take advantage of people and, like, no one got hurt so…” Fuck. Timothy was getting Stockholm syndrome, wasn’t he? “Okay, so maybe that was an asshole thing to say,” Timothy sighs and rubs his face. “but maybe I’m tired of her trying to bum lunches off of me with money I don’t really have.”

Jack looks at him like he can’t believe the stupid that comes out of Timothy’s mouth. “You have _got_ to grow a backbone, kiddo.”

Timothy snorts and Jack is _really_ looking at him like he’s crazy. “Says the guy who browbeat his way onto our couch?”

“Well, maybe you shouldn’t have _let_ me.”

“Yeah, well, maybe we shouldn’t have put you together again,” And what does it say about Timothy that he’s not even mad anymore. “but we did. I…I don’t even know what we’re arguing about anymore.” Timothy blindly grabs at the coffee pot and hisses in pain when he touches the pot instead of the handle.

“You are such a dumb fuck.” And it should be an insult, it really, really should. But Jack is looking at him like he’s horribly confused and, honestly, Timothy’s in the same boat.

“You sound like my mother.” Timothy says wryly and for the life of him, he tries to make it a joke, but Jack’s silence says he doesn’t quite hit the mark. Timothy tops off his coffee and retreats back to his room under the android’s pensive stare.

\---

“Why did you drop out of school?” Timothy nearly chokes on the soggy tacos he bought for dinner. Jack’s been watching him for days now. Not when Timothy can catch him, of course, but his gaze always has a weight to it. Timothy had been expecting…something….for a while, but not this.

Timothy looked incredulously at Jack. “Why do you even care?”

“I don’t.” Which is such a stupid come back, but Jack has a stubborn set to his jaw and Timothy just sighs.

“I just…I realized that I was never going to make it as an actor or as a Broadway star and I was up to my eyeballs in debt already.” Timothy is about to take another bite, but he sighs and puts the soggy thing down; it’s not like it’s going to get any mushier. “And I hated it. I mean, the work was great. I love…everything about being on stage, you know? I like the whirlwind of costume changes and the multiple characters and scenes and how one space, not even big enough for a hallway would literally transform into any place the human mind can dream up…” Timothy sighs. “I mean, I never got to have one of the big roles, but it was more…there’s a culture, you know?” Timothy looks at Jack and is surprised to find the android actually watching him, face completely passive, but he hasn’t told Timothy to fuck off yet which is…more than Timothy expected. “It’s a big, stupid, elitist culture that was never, in a million years, going to include me. I mean…I wanted to act more than I wanted to belong, but…I had this stupid notion that I was going to go to college and get away from my home town and I’d find a hundred people who understood me and liked what I liked and…” Timothy leans back and runs a hand through his hair. “It was stupid. And I was miserable. So I quit. Because even the good ones only have a one in a million chance to make it big and I…I was never good.”     

“So you gave up to work in a taco truck?”

“It’s not a taco truck,” Timothy says irritably, for the millionth time. “but, yeah. I mean, city living isn’t the cheapest…but it sure beats going back home.”

“Sure as hell does.” Jack murmurs, so quiet Timothy almost misses it.

He almost calls Jack on it. Almost. Instead, he just picks at his dinner.

\----

 “Why don’t you go get plastered at a bar like a normal person?” Jack grumbles resignedly, eyes raised imploringly at the heavens.

Okay, so maybe Timothy has had too much to drink. Just one over his normal amount. Maybe two. But his room is too far away and the kitchen chairs are too uncomfortable and he helped buying the fucking couch so why _not_ use it. “Don’t like people.” Timothy slurs, slouching farther into the cushions.

“Then how the fuck do you expect to get laid?”

Timothy rolls his head to glare at him. “You’ve lived here for over a month. You _know_ how much of a fucking loser I am.”

Jack snorts and Timothy punches him half-heartedly; it should be telling that he’s sort of used to the perpetual irritation that came with dealing with Jack. “Kinda thought you were fucking Vaughn.”

Timothy chokes and Jack just laughs at him. “Ew! No, man, we’re just friends! I mean…he _tried_ to set me up with his friend, once.” Timothy groaned at the memory, pressing the heel of his palms into his eyes. “Like, I don’t know how I could fuck _that_ up, but there ya go.”

 “You’re not a v-“

“No!” Timothy almost stands up to leave, before realizing that that’s probably what the android wants. “Why are you even asking me about this?” Timothy slumps in defeat.

“Because you're too plastered to keep your mouth shut.” Jack says with a shit eating grin.

“Asshole.” Timothy grumbled. He sat there for a while, just watching the ceiling fan spin, wanting to sober up a bit before hauling himself to bed.

“Why did you put me back together?”

“Huh?” Timothy blinks at Jack.

“Look, I know humans are fucking garbage. I don’t expect the answer to be nice, but I wanna know.” Jack’s jaw is set, a challenge in his mismatched eyes.

“I dunno.” Jack glared at him. “Yeah, I know it’s not the answer you want, but it was all kinda sudden. It was mostly Vaugh. I…shit, I kept telling him not to bring you home, that it was too much trouble, I mean, _Jesus_ ,” Timothy shuddered. “Your fucking _face_ was missing!”

“So…what, a little TLC too much trouble for a house slave?”

“Uh, no. A little too much work just to have _more_ nightmares! And let me tell you, the fucking nightmares,” Timothy sucks in a breath. “too fucking much, man.”

“God, you are such a fucking pussy! So you couldn’t handle, what, a week with my broken ass wreck on your couch, is that it?” Jack snaps at him, angrily turning back to his computer.

Timothy stares at his hands. “That didn’t help, but…” Timothy rubs his eyes. “You know we didn’t have the money for the parts, right?” The clacking of the keyboard stops, but Timothy can’t look away from his twitching fingers. “We had to go to the fucking _Pits_ , man.” Timothy’s whole body shuddered. “Rip parts right out of dead androids. I’m mean, hell, we brought back fucking _heads._ I don’t even know what Vaughn did with them. I just…stared at my ceiling afterwards until the sun came up.” Timothy sighs, hauling himself up and looking for another beer; at this rate, he was going to have nightmares all night long. “It was mostly Vaughn’s idea. Maybe he wanted some help around the apartment, but,” Timothy runs a hand through his hair and pops off the bottle cap. “He didn’t want you to die, either. I just didn’t want my one friend to get hurt.”  Timothy almost thinks twice sitting next to Jack again, but he’s already flopping down before he thinks better of it. “So maybe it’s not what you want, but it’s what happened.”

Jack was quiet for a long moment, staring at the computer screen. “Just drink your beer.”

His tone is so quiet and devoid of confrontation that Timothy does as he’s told.

\----

The next morning he wakes to a pounding headache and a couple of pills and a glass of water on his bedside table. He’s groggily popping the pills before he realizes that he can’t remember falling asleep in his bed. It’s not like the couch and his room are that far away, but, nope, he’s way too hungover to consider anything other than a graceless, self-propelled crash into his own pillows.

The look on Vaughn’s face, though, as he actually sits at the kitchen table, fidgeting all to hell, says a different story. “Hey, bro, you wanna get coffee from that place you like? My treat.”  

Timothy doesn’t quite feel like death warmed over now that the pills have kicked in, but, hell, he’s in no shape to greet the brand new day. But Vaughn’s eyes are begging him to accept and, well, Timothy caves pretty quickly for anyone that actually likes him. “Fuckin’ fine.” Timothy grumbles.

“No backbone.” Jack murmurs, seemingly to himself.

“Fuck off, you couch surfer.” Timothy doesn’t spare enough energy for a glare at the android, just flips him the bird as Timothy retreats to his room to find jeans and shoes, Jack’s laugh following him.

\---

“So what the hell, man?” Vaughn asks once they’re sequestered in a corner of the coffee shop, knee bouncing and looking like the last thing he needed was coffee.

“I dunno, man.” Timothy scrubs at his face, slumping over the table. “I don’t even know what you're even talking about.”

“You don’t-“Vaughn huffs irritably. “Whatever thing you have going on with Jack! I mean, I found you passed out on freaking _couch_. And, like, he didn’t seem to mind!” Vaughn draws closer, voice lowering conspiratorially. “Bro, he helped me drag you into _bed_. I mean, what am I-“

“He did what?” Timothy gapes at his friend.

Vaughn pinches the bridge of his nose, momentarily displacing his glasses. “I came home and you were, seriously, asleep on the couch and he was just typing away like normal! And I was trying not to have a heart attack and you know that stupid judging look of his? Well, I had to say something, and, I dunno, I panicked and said you’d get a crick in your neck like you always do and he just…did that weird android analyzing thing I guess and roped me into dragging you into bed. Like, I was two seconds from just leaving you there.”

Timothy drops his head into his hands. “Okay, in my defense, I was stupid drunk and then he asked me hard questions and…I dunno, the best idea seemed to be just to drink more.” A thought occurs to him. “Wait…you said he didn’t seem mad?”

“Uh, yeah, which is creepy because he’s always mad.”

Timothy scrubs his face.  “I think he thinks it’s funny when I’m drunk. He seemed less cagy last time I was drunk, too.” Timothy covers his admission with a sip of scalding hot coffee.

“Last time-? Seriously, bro? Do you have a death wish?!”

“No, but I mean-“ Timothy sighs, really looking at his friend. He…realizes he hasn’t seen Vaughn nearly as often as he used to. His skin is a little sallow and there are deep bags under his eyes. Timothy figured Vaughn was catching naps at the library, but looking at him now…maybe it wasn’t just Timothy who had reoccurring nightmares now. “Look.” Timothy takes a deep breath and prepares for the outburst he’s probably going to get for this. “If you need to move out, at least while he’s here…I get it, bro. Yvette looked so guilty that she’d probably let you borrow her couch.”

“Tim.” Vaughn looks at him with wide eyes. Seriously, why did people keep looking at Timothy like he was crazy? “You're not seriously suggesting I just leave you there?”

The implication warms Timothy’s heart, but this is too important to get all sappy. “You’re not doing so hot, man. I know it’s gotta be hell for you, dealing with Jack and those accelerated classes. I can deal with him for another couple of months. I mean, he’s not a great guy or anything, but…I’ve kinda had to get used to him. I mean, I don’t really have anywhere else but the apartment.”

“Look, I know you're trying to do that noble thing again-“

“I’m not-“

“Yeah, you are, bro. And…if I had just listened to you, we wouldn’t be in this mess, so…I can’t just run away.”

Timothy knows that stupid, determined look. “Yeah, but you can’t keep living like this.”

“Look, I have no idea what happened when Yvette stumbled in, but, Tim, how do we know he’s not going to turn on you, on us, like a rabid dog?!”

“I don’t know.” Timothy looks at his hands. “I don’t know, Vaughn, but…I just…I don’t think he’s as bad as he’s pretending.” Vaughn opens his mouth, but Timothy presses on. “Yeah, I _know_ I’m shit at people! I mean, with my luck he could literally be a serial killer. But it’s just…there are some moments that…I’m reminded that he’s not some mobster that took over our apartment; he’s an android, someone built to obey humans. I don’t know what’s different about him, I don’t know why he can ignore us, but…you know how shit humans can be, Vaughn.”

“He isn’t worth your sympathy, Tim.” Vaughn said sadly, almost like he knew that he wasn’t going to change Timothy’s mind.

Timothy takes another long sip of his coffee. “Maybe your right, but…you know how fucked up his skin is, right?” Vaughn nods reluctantly. “I think those are scars. And…he’s got a ton of them.”

Vaughn looks, surprisingly, like he’s caving. “Okay, so maybe he might have been abused. Shit. But, bro, what makes you think that he _isn’t_ going to turn on us?”

“How about-hear me out on this- we try talking to him, come to some sort of arrangement. If he’s just as hostile, I promise, we’ll get out of there and find some way to put him down.”

Vaughn looks dubiously at him. “You’re really serious?”

“I’m certain enough to gamble my own skin on it.” Timothy shrugs. “He hasn’t hurt us yet, Vaughn, and…look, I’ve done enough stupid shit over the past two months that he should have done _something_.”

“I don’t like it.” Vaughn mumbles, but honestly, Timothy can’t believe he’s giving in the easily. The past couple of months must have taken more out of his friend than he realized.

“Eh, we’ll go in, attack and then run away like pansies; it’ll be just like VR.”

Vaughn snorts half-heartedly, but at least it’s something.

\---


	4. Smoke

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Things shift, and somehow things get better.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so. Things might have changed a little. Couple of new tags and a rating bump. I'mma be real; this story is kinda veering off into a different direction than I was planning, but I'm liking it so far.

Of course, the android isn’t there when they got home. Timothy would be concerned, not _worried_ or anything, but Jack’s laptop is sitting on the kitchen table. Which…now that Timothy thinks about it, is Jack’s only possession besides the thrifted clothes on his back. Those, and a ratty ass yellow sweater that Timothy accidentally stole from a roommate some odd years ago and kept forgetting to throw away.

When Timothy re-enters the living room from searching the empty apartment, Vaughn has the laptop open, frowning furiously at an “input password” window.

“Wonder what kinda password an android would use?” Vaughn huffs irritably. “Probably not something either of us is going to be able to guess in a million years.”

Timothy is nodding, but his attention strays to the repurposed wall. He thinks back to that night when he asked Jack about it, when, in reality, Jack should have handed Timothy’s ass to him rather than answer.

“Dude…what are you humming?” Vaughn looks at him like Timothy’s lost the final screw.

“Nothing,” Timothy reassures hurriedly. “Just thinking.” And not to continue humming that tune from RENT. Still, it plays in his head, almost begging him to see if he’s right. ‘The Code…well?’ ‘A-N-G-E-L’. “Maybe we shouldn’t mess with that.”

“Bro.” Vaughn says flatly. “When are we going to have another chance?”

Timothy almost tries to appeal to Vaughn’s morals. Almost. But he bites back his initial response and says instead. “And what are we going to do if it logs our attempt?”

Vaughn frowns, but closes the computer all the same.

\---

Jack’s back the next morning, like he hasn’t left his permanent spot on the sofa. Vaughn hastily makes a bid for class, which Timothy has no reason to get irritated at.

Timothy sighs; he actually has a day off and fuck if he’s going to let him and Vaughn live like this any longer if he can help it.

Jack raises an eyebrow at him as Timothy drags over the least doggy kitchen chair and plonks down in front of Jack. “Not feeling cuddly today, pumpkin?” Jack just grins at Timothy’s glare.

“We need to talk.”

Jack raises both of his eyebrows, eyeing Timothy appraisingly. Jack –huh- sets his laptop off to one side giving Timothy his full attention. “Shoot.”

Timothy blinks, shuffling awkwardly in his chair; he didn’t think step one would be so easy. “Uh. Well…”

Jack sighs, looking at Timothy like he’s a dumb fuck. He might even be an endearing dumb fuck, but it’s hard to tell with the guy. “Aaaand you were doing so well.”

“It’s not like expected you to actually listen!” Timothy grumbles.

Jack reclines lazily, looking far too comfortable on the shitty thing. “I don’t got all day, kiddo.”

“Stop messing with Vaughn.” It’s out of Timothy’s mouth before he realizes it. “I don’t know what you’re doing, but he’s at the edge of his rope and he’s worked too hard and gotten too far to fail his classes because of you. I know you bullied your way onto our couch, but you're still a guest and we haven’t tried to throw you out and the least you can do is act like a decent human being.”

Which, okay, yeah; that was…that was _way_ more of an attack than he planned. But Jack is just looking at him…and dare he say it, but the android actually looks impressed. “So what’s stopping nerd boy from saying it himself? He needs his big strong boy toy to stick up for him?”

Jack’s already grinning before Timothy can even make a face at him. “No! Dude! I already _told_ you-“ Timothy breaks off because he _knows_ what the asshole is doing. He takes a deep breath. “We _were_ going to talk to you yesterday, but you were the one who vanished into thin air.” Timothy informs him irritably, getting up to grab a glass of water; otherwise he’d probably try to strangle the guy. “And, honestly, if anyone is going to be bench-pressing anyone, it’s gotta be Vaughn.” Jack snorts. “Seriously, the weirdo _actually_ likes working out.”

“He _can’t_ be ripped.”

Timothy grins at the disbelief in the android’s voice. “To the gods.” Timothy contradicts smugly. “More ripped than you, actually.” Timothy has to bite his cheek to keep from laughing as Jack honest to god _pouts_ at him. Which lasts until Timothy shuts himself in his room, enjoying the victory as he _knows_ Jack can hear him losing it.  

 ---

“Okay, what the heck did you do, Bro?” Vaughn whispers the second he forces his way into Timothy’s room.

Timothy pauses his video and plucks an earphone out. “Jack acting weird?”

Now Vaughn is looking at him suspiciously. “He, uh, greeted me when I came home. Which, you know, is a change from his, I don’t know, serial killer glare!”

Timothy shrugs, forcing down the smile that threatens to burst. “I just talked to him. No big deal.”

“No big-“ Vaughn looks like he’s going to have an aneurism. “Okay, we are heading out and talking about this, because I have no idea how much he can hear.”

Timothy thinks that Vaughn is maybe over exaggerating, but Jack grins at them the minute they exit Timothy’s room. “Have fun, be safe, Wear protection, No DWI’s and be back before midnight.” Jack singsongs, a chuckle in his voice.

Timothy throws a pen at him, which misses Jack by a mile, and Jack’s cackle follows them out into the main hallway.

\---

They end up at a park, mostly because neither of them really feels like spending money.

“How do you deal with him?” Vaughn moans.    

“Mostly I just treat him like he’s an emotionally stunted asshole who likes pissing people off for entertainment.” Timothy says with a shrug.

“So.” Vaughn mumbles, and there’s something about it that has Timothy’s full attention. “How did you really get him to stop?”

Timothy blinks at his friend. “I wasn’t joking, bro. I just…told him to stop.”

Vaughn makes a wounded noise that has Timothy mentally scrambling. “Bro, I don’t…I don’t want you doing… _shit_!” Vaughn grips his head, and it looks almost painful. “I don’t want you to-to sacrifice yourself for me!”

“Dude, I mean, I see you're upset, but…” Timothy looks at Vaughn, feeling completely lost. “I, uh, think I’m missing something here?”

Vaughn looks up at Timothy. “You mean…you haven’t been…uh-“ Vaughn makes an obscene gesture and- yeah Timothy _totally_ gets the picture now. “-with him?”

“What?! Why would you even-?” Timothy can’t look at Vaugh, his face burning like a furnace.

“I dunno! I just- I remembered what Yvette said about Rhys and Jack seemed to suddenly like you and, I dunno, man, I’ve seen you make some _bad_ decisions when drunk.” Vaughn mumbled, words stumbling over each other in an embarrassed flurry.

“Okay, you're not wrong, but- c’mon, man. Really? _Jack_?” Timothy winces.

“Bro, you're, like, only attracted to people who are bad for you! What was I _supposed_ to think?!”

“He’s…he’s an android! I’m not even sure if he, uh, could-“ Timothy awkwardly mimic’s Vaughn’s earlier gesture.

“Well..” Vaughn says slowly. “We don’t _actually_ know what he did before we put him back together.”

Timothy tries to picture it. He’s mostly been too poor to go into strip clubs, not to mention other places, but that had all been dancing women. While they all look, ah, nice, he can’t see Jack up there. No, if anything, Jack would be seated in the back, languidly enjoying the sights. The girls are paid to be up on stage, true, but he bets that Jack could catch an eye or two, even all the way in the back, with his dangerous air and too sharp grin and languorous sprawl. Timothy shakes his head, trying to stop his head from spinning. What the _fuck_ was he just thinking? “You-“ Timothy has to clear his throat before trying again. “you have clearly thought _way_ too much about this, Bro.”             

 “Well, what did _you_ think he did?” Vaughn asks, voice tight with embarrassment.

 “Well…” Timothy desperately tries not to think of smoky strip clubs. “He’s kinda built for manual labor. But if he’s built for that…then where did his computer know-how come from?” Timothy tries to think back on all of their conversations, tries to find some clue behind the insults. He comes up empty.

“He could be military grade.” Vaughn says quietly. “I didn’t think androids could get so violent.”

Timothy shrugs, but the implication is worrying. “Well, maybe I’ll ask him the next time I get shit faced.”

“Next time?” Vaughn asks, a touch of humor in his voice that lifts a weight from Timothy’s shoulders that he didn’t think he had. “I dunno about you, but I need a drink _now_.”

\---

  At least this time, it’s not just Timothy stumbling around miserably in the morning. He wonders if he should mention the pain pills on his bedside table, but Vaughn’s looking so miserable, wincing at the sound of the pills rattling out of the bottle, that he’d probably just urge his friend to day drink.

Timothy can’t quite remember what happened after the park. He just knows it’s a bar like the millions of others in a college town, just trying to get its customers sloshed with no extra flair. He does sort of remember sobering up slightly on the walk home, Jack teasing him about one thing or another, the android hounding his heels.   
            He watches Jack from the corner of his eyes, but Jack just smirks at his computer screen, as if he saw something funny there and not in the grumbling humans.

\---

Things…things actually did get better. It’s weird to think that he did something to change it, but no matter how he looks at it, that’s the only conclusion Timothy can draw. Vaughn hangs around more, loses the dark circles under his eyes for the most part, and looks happier overall, though he still avoids Jack. Jack isn’t any less of an asshole, but, well, Timothy might tentatively call them friends. It’s probably the surrealist thing of all, as Vaughn has been his only friend for so long, but Timothy could also be jumping the gun; he’s been wrong before.

Jack doesn’t greet him when he comes home, but they do talk. Not about their days or anything, just random topics that typically says more about Timothy than they do about Jack. He’s not quite comfortable sitting on the sofa still, but even if Timothy never catches Jack sleeping or whatever the android equivalent is, it still feels like Jack’s bed. He’s reasonably certain that Jack doesn’t mind, if Jack’s incredulous look every time Timothy drags over a kitchen chair says anything.

Yvette calls Vaughn every now and then, but the conversation is always short. Timothy wonders if she’s just seeing if they’re still alive. He wonders if all of this has damaged their friendship, but honestly, Timothy isn’t sure he minds. He does kinda feel like an asshole, though.

Rhys…Timothy has no idea what’s up with Rhys, but he wouldn’t put it past Vaughn to ‘protect’ him. Rhys has always been sort of oblivious, even if the guy was annoyingly smart, and probably wouldn’t guess something was up. If he did…Timothy really wasn’t sure how to feel about it. Because when push came to shove, Rhys would do just about anything for Vaughn; it was one of the things Timothy liked about Rhys enough to go along with Vaughn’s hair brained plan. But in this case, getting Rhys involved meant getting CyberLife involved…and that meant endangering Jack. Which bothered him. And Timothy had no idea how to feel about that.

\---

“What did you do…before, ya know?” Timothy gestures vaguely at the apartment. He’s a bit tipsy, because, even though he trusts Jack to an extent, he can’t imagine just asking the question. Timothy’s not used to getting close to people; oh sure, he’s close with Vaughn, but their friendship is made up of dorky TV and arcade nights and jokes. Timothy doesn’t know much about Vaughn’s past, just whatever his friend feels like revealing.

Jack watches him, unreadable, as Timothy curls into the couch. His gaze isn’t filled with his normal disparaging amusement, but for some reason it never really is when he’s drunk. Oh, he’s typically amused, but in Timothy’s mind his expression is always a bit softer. Okay, that might just be the beer goggles talking.

Timothy watches the android. It’s weird; he should be completely freaked out as his own face stared at him. He isn’t though, because his initial impressions are only sharpened by familiarity. The mismatched eyes are sharper, more intense than Timothy’s plain old brown ones, the hardware keeping his face in place adding a different  proportion to Jack’s face. Timothy wonders, idly, what the skin-like material would feel like over a moving face. He touched it, obviously, when they stuck it on, but Timothy can’t remember what it felt like; just the disturbing jiggle it made when Vaughn was carrying it around.

“I don’t want to talk about it.”

Timothy blinks, dragging his eyes away from Jack’s lips to his bright eyes. “Huh?”

Jack rolls his eyes but his shoulders are unusually tense. “Look, I _know_ you're not that drunk. I don’t want to talk about it.”

“Okay.” Timothy agrees, staring at his thumbs. He’s not surprised or anything that Jack refused, but he hoped he would.

“What do you mean ‘okay’?” The android snaps and Timothy jumps, turning to see Jack’s angry, confused eyes boring into him.

Timothy shrinks back into the couch; he can’t help it, not when he’s suddenly reminded of how much larger the other guy is. “I…I meant ‘okay,’ ya know? I was gonna drop it.”

Jack blinks at him, but after a long moment, he sinks back into the sofa with a long sigh.

“Do you want me to go?” Timothy asks softly. But it’s a stupid question; he remembers asking it a thousand times over his life and apart from Vaughn…well, the answer has always been ‘yes.’

 Jack’s burning hand catches his wrist as he moves to get up. Timothy blinks stupidly down at it, momentarily getting lost in the rough texture of his skin, the contrast of Jack’s larger, darker digits against his wrist. He flicks his eyes up tentatively, but Jack isn’t looking at him, just glaring irritably at the kitchen. “Why do you always have to look like a kicked puppy, kiddo?”

“I don’t!” Timothy protests and he’s going to deny to his grave that Jack’s probably right.

“Yeah, you do!” Jack’s grin is back and he’s poking Timothy’s face. “Like a tiny, adorable puppy!” The asshole giggles when Timothy glares at him. “Are you fucking _pouting_?” Jack asks with glee.

“No!” Timothy grumbles, aiming a kick at Jack’s knee, which the android easily catches.

“Yeah, you are!” Jack flicks Timothy’s bottom lip and- no, no, nope Timothy is _not_ drunk enough for that.

Timothy tugs his foot back from Jack’s grip and curls back onto the couch, resolutely avoiding Jack.  

“Oh, c’mon, sweetheart, I was just _kidding_!”

\---

Timothy doesn’t wake rock hard the next morning, flashes of a dream urging his hand down. He doesn’t think of a warm, solid body pressed tight against his back, a thumb caressing his bottom lip, or a possessively sighed ‘sweetheart’ in his ear. He doesn’t force himself to be quiet so the android won’t hear him. It doesn’t make his blood pump faster, knowing that Jack will hear him anyway. He doesn’t think of large, tan hands finishing him off when he comes.

Nope.

Not in a million years.

\---


	5. Inefficient

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Angst and phone calls and musicals. This one might have gotten away from me

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I’ve mostly written what was supposed to be the ending…but nothing has been tied in a nice, neat little bow like I wanted, so who knows when the heck I’m ending it. But, hey, that means more story for you!

“You okay, bro?”

It’s an odd Monday morning off for Vaughn; with Timothy’s job it rare that they both have mornings off together during the semester. Especially rare now that Timothy keeps waking up with a certain re-occurring problem. “Yeah. Why do you ask?”

“You look like you haven’t been sleeping well, man. I thought asking Jack to cool it was gonna stop all this.” The android in question is absent from the apartment, another oddity in their strange lives.

Timothy busies himself making coffee, trying to hide his face so his roommate couldn’t see his flush. “You know, man. Dreams.” He manages to say it casually, but he’s desperately _not_ trying to think of distracting images.

“Well,” The shorter man awkwardly clasps Timothy on the shoulder. “Try not to let it get you down.”

\---

Normally, Timothy would feel guilty for buying so much alcohol. Normally, though, Timothy ends up eating take out so often, he has to eat ramen for the last week before payday. It’s a bit weird, knowing he can afford a couple of extra six packs of the nice stuff, but Timothy decides to just revel in it. Honestly, though, he should have just bought a bottle of rum; probably would go farther with a twelve pack of coke.

And sure, Timothy isn’t the guy who really goes out of his way for the stuff; he’ll dive for nearest can of whatever at a party, but at home? He’s typically happy with a beer now and then on his days off.

It’s not quite fair to say that it’s Jack that encourages him to drink, because it’s not anything Jack does that makes him grab for the church key; it’s more…it’s more of what Timothy is not. People haven’t ever been easy for Timothy; every time he wants to reach out he just…doesn’t. Even if they’re smiling and looking friendly, he can picture them shutting down when they look at him, turn away his awkward greeting, shrug off his friendly clap on the back. Honestly, the only reason Vaughn is his friend is because Vaughn seemed to like him so much, despite Timothy’s initial awkwardness. Even then, it took months for Timothy to even feel brave enough to call Vaughn his friend. He’s not even sure if Vaughn knows he was his first real friend since kindergarden.

If alcohol just made things easier, maybe it wouldn’t be so seductive, but it’s more than that; it makes him feel comfortable and relaxed and like Jack likes him and like maybe they’re on an even playing field. Maybe it’s all still true outside of drunkenness, but Timothy still can’t quite believe it in his darker moments, which have been hanging around a little more freely with his lack of sleep, trying to push himself farther so he can just black out and not dream.

But he also likes how Jack seems to open up whenever Timothy has had a few, seems less guarded and maybe even a little affectionate. That’s the real kicker. Jack never says anything about himself except for the briefest of hints, but maybe it’s because he hopes Timothy forgets about it in the morning.

\---

“Hey.” This is stupid. This is really fucking stupid. Probably one of the biggest mistakes of his life.

“Uh..hey, uh, Tim. Something…something up with Vaughn?” Rhys says cautiously over the line, exactly like they haven’t even tried to keep in contact in the ten months that Rhys has been gone.

“No! He’s, uh...he’s good.”

“What’s…with the music?”

“You know that android we picked up?” Timothy asked, ignoring the obnoxiously loud heavy metal in favor of hanging out of his window.

“The H6900?”

“Yeah. I _swear_ he can listen through the walls, so…I’m pretending I have a little privacy?”

“He’s an android, man; he’s probably not even storing it in his memory banks.”

Timothy almost wants to laugh hysterically at that, but it’s pretty much become his new normal. “Well, you know me and my irrational fear of androids.”

“Kinda can’t believe Vaughn convinced you to take it home.”

“I kinda can’t believe it, either.” Timothy takes a deep breath. It’s now or ever. “Hey, I, uh…kinda had a question for you.”

“Uh, sure. I don’t have _much_ experience on working on code from models that old, but I should be able to pull up some standard H6900 code tomorrow.”

“No,” Timothy’s face burned. “A…uh, more personal question?”

“ _Oh._ ”

“Yeah, I know, it’s weird, but it’d be weirder asking Vaughn so…”

“I don’t have much experience with phone sex, but-“

“Oh my god!” Timothy grits out, would probably scream it if he wasn’t so concerned about Jack listening in. “What, _seriously_ , is wrong with-“ Timothy forces himself to take a deep breath. “I…I was _trying_ to ask for advice.”

“Uh…sorry?” Rhys sounds embarrassed, but also kinda confused, like who would refuse some nice phone sex? Timothy, apparently, that was who.

“How…” It’s hard to get out, but at least Rhys didn’t jump to any more conclusions. “How do you get someone to like you?” It sounds so stupidly juvenile, but at least it’s something.

“Well, if the usual methods didn’t work, taking your clothes off generally gets the message across.”

Timothy takes a deep breath, trying his hardest to function through the mortification. “Which are?”

“Huh?”

Timothy squeezed his eyes shut, rubbing his forehead painfully against the open lip of the window. “What are the usual methods?”

“Wait. Are you telling me…that Timothy _fucking_ Lawrence, has no idea how to pull?” And it would be the final straw if Rhys didn’t sound as lost as him.

“I get nervous around people…” Timothy mumbles lamely.

“Seriously? Bro, not trying to get in your pants or anything, but you could have, like, _anyone,_ you wanted. I mean, I might think twice about walking in a club with you if I wanted to take someone home.”

“I…really?!” Timothy squeaked.

“Bro, seriously, when was the last time you looked into a mirror?”

Timothy mumbled noncommittedly.

“Okay, okay; fine. I mean, it’s weird, but fine. But, I gotta ask; who’s the person that getting _you_ to put yourself out there?”

“Well, uh,” Shit, Timothy has _not_ thought things through. “I met him at, uh, work.” And Timothy can picture it; as if they were two regular humans going about their day. Jack would catch his eye, say something sarcastic, probably order the grossest sounding thing off of the menu, and leave with that sharp grin. And Timothy would be thinking about him idly, wondering if he would come again, but knowing he wouldn’t. But Jack would, again and again. “He’s…he’s kind of an asshole, honestly, but…I dunno, there’s something _sexy_ about him. I mean, I didn’t even really think about it until Vaughn, uh, pointed something out,” And _that_ was almost a close call. “I mean, he was joking, but still…”

“Yeah, no, he gets that face; I can _totally_ see why you don’t want to talk to him. Vaughn’s a great guy, supportive and all that, but he can be a bit of a stick in the mud.”

Timothy’s first instinct is to lash out in his friend’s defense, but…no. Not only would Vaughn not want him to, but Rhys hasn’t given him any answers yet, either. “I, uh, I don’t think he’d approve, honestly.”

 “I _know_ what you mean.” Rhys sighed. “Okay. So you like this guy. Does he…does he know you?” Timothy can hear the wince in Rhys’ voice, but, depressingly, the question is a fair one.

“Yeah. I think…I think we might be friends? I…I dunno. I don’t have the best track record for that sort of thing.”

“So what do you guys…do?”

“We talk, mostly about stupid shit. He doesn’t like talking about himself much, though.” Timothy racks his brain, trying to say something that wouldn’t give it all away, but, honestly, they don’t really do much. “I drink sometimes while he works on…I dunno, really.” Timothy admits. “He’s so cagy it seems rude to ask.” 

Rhys makes a frustrated sound. “Look, man, I’d like to help, but, uh, I’m not really in a place where I wanna commit, you know? I mean, it’s not really complicated when everyone knows what the gig is. That, though? That sounds complicated.”

“I didn’t think it sounded that complicated.” Timothy mumbles. He’s never really succeeded, either, so maybe that’s why it never works out.

“It’s just the way you sound when you talk about him. Like…when you're out in a club, right, getting your first choice is nice. But if you don’t there’s always a second or a third or a seventh. And even if you do, you're just onto the next person the next night. I mean,” Rhys admits. “wanting someone so much you ache for them always sounded kinda sexy, but...if that’s what it’s like, I think I’m okay.”

“I’m not sure he’s even capable of affection.” Timothy admits quietly. “I mean, I think he does, but…you don’t know how many times I got myself caught up in stupid situations because I read too much into nothing.”

“Look, bro, I guess…just keep being yourself and he’s got to come around. I mean, like I said, you're Timothy Fucking Lawrence; I honestly can’t picture you failing to seduce a guy.”

“Yeah?” Timothy asks, feeling, for the first time in a long time, a spark of hope.

“Women…eh, debatable, but I bet you a case of beer he’s already eyeing you.”

Timothy snorts, but it cheers him up anyway. “Thanks, man.”

“Any time, Tim.”

\---

“Someone’s sounding cheerful.”

Timothy stops humming, heat flushing his face; he was humming fucking _Cats_ again. “I dunno. It’s, uh, it’s been a weird week.”       

Jack gestures for Timothy to sit on the sofa and…well, how can he refuse an actual, blatant invitation?  “Decided you liked that screamo shit instead of that gay shit you watch?”

Timothy blushes. Okay, maybe he gets too lazy to go find his headphones before watching Netflix. Not like he’s making that mistake again. He wants to protest the gay shit just out of self-defense, but, okay, maybe he had been watching Cats last night because he wanted something comforting and familiar, and…yeah, fine, there’s very few things as gay as guys dancing in spandex bodysuits, dressed as felines or no. “No! I just…I wanted to make a phone call and not get mugged outside of my apartment.” That had only happened once, albeit in a different neighborhood, but even his assailant looked like it hadn’t been worth the effort.

“Something you didn’t want me to hear?” Timothy freezes as the danger in Jack’s tone triggers something in his lizard brain.

“No!” Timothy protests, but Jack’s eyes only get harder. “I mean…” Timothy tries to calm down, cursing his stupid, timid self. “I guess.”

Jack blinks and just like that, the intimidating aura is gone. He makes an annoyed sound in the back of his…throat? Timothy’s not sure how all of that works. “Quit it with the face, pumpkin; I believe you.” Jack turns pointedly back to his computer.

 “I wasn’t…I’m…I’m not planning on turning you in.” Timothy feels stupid the minutes he says it, but it’s already out there.

Jack’s spins to look at him, shock written in every inch of his face, but the android tries to cover it with a look of derision. “That…is a real fucking stupid idea, kiddo. I could literally be planning on strangling you five minutes from now!”

Timothy laughs. “Yeah, sure, I’ll make sure to be on guard in the five minutes, thanks for the warning.” Jack grumbled at him, and, dare he say it, but it looks like Timothy might have embarrassed the guy, if his uncomfortable slouch into the sofa was any indication.

Timothy had been planning on just grabbing a beer and digging out his old copy of Phantom of the Opera, but a Jack that was opening up to him without any alcohol…that was better. “I’ve…uh…I’ve been wondering…the face?” Timothy gestures at his own. “Is it…weird?”

“Not as weird as having nothing,” Jack drawls. “It’s better than the one I had before.” Jack says with a shrug. “Ya know, the one that reminds you that you were made in a factory and that there’s a half a million guys who look exactly like you. At least you didn’t bother replacing this thing. ” Jack taps at the inert LED at his temple, the one that normally indicated emotions or level of processing or whatever; Timothy didn’t really know. “Took me a while to figure out why you two idiots didn’t figure out I was up and running, but I guess you aren’t as dense as you look.”

“How long were you awake for?” Timothy asks quietly.

Jack pursed his lips. “Dunno. Think I was out of it after the shotgun blast…I was awake some time during transport and then when they dumped me…”Jack shrugs. “Hard to tell; only sense I had was touch, anyway.”

“Holy shit…” Timothy tries to picture it; the only feeling the press of inert bodies, being crushed under the weight of them, of being manhandling to…somewhere. “And I thought our end was a shit show…” Jack pokes Timothy aggressively in the side. “Ow!”

“Cut it out, princess; I’m not human. I can’t feel pain and I don’t panic when my senses shut off because it’s ‘inefficient.’” Jack air quotes distastefully. “It doesn’t matter, I got it back. Everyone’s fine now so stop looking like that.”    

 “Sorry,” Timothy replies automatically, then catches himself. So then instinctually, he apologizes for _that_. “Fuck!”

Jack laughs at him, and what does it say about Timothy that he isn’t even offended anymore?   

Timothy is thinking about turning in for the night; though he’s enjoying the companionable silence, he doesn’t want to outstay his welcome.  

            “So what kind of shit do you watch?”

Timothy jumps; he hadn’t meant to start dozing. “Oh, uh, musicals mostly. They’re kinda a big commitment so…” Timothy shrugs awkwardly. He’s waiting for the dismissive look or at the very politest, a glazed or disinterested one, but Jack keeps looking at him, as if…he wanted Timothy to continue? “I, um, like the classics: Rent, Les Misérables, West Side Story…that sort of thing. I was thinking of watching one…but I think it might be at my mom’s house.” Timothy realized; Phantom of the Opera wasn’t one of his favorites, but then again, he had been originally planning on returning to his hometown during the summer.

“She got you hooked on the stuff?”

“Nah. She hated everything to do with it. I think I always enjoyed them, but it was one of my few rebellions.” After all, it had been one of the easiest ones to hide.  

“Why don’t you pop one in?”

Jack doesn’t look at him as Timothy gapes at him. He’s starting to pick up more of Jack’s cues, but…no. Because the asshole always hides behind his computer when things get too real and that would mean…no. “Uh…I…do you…even like musicals?” Timothy asks tentatively.

Jack shrugs and it makes Timothy even more nervous, makes him wonder when the other shoe is going to drop. “Sometime today, princess?”

“Have you even…watched movies?”

Jack glares at him and…okay, Timothy did deserve that. “Of course I fucking watched movies. Twenty two years of broken programing would get pretty fucking boring otherwise.”

Timothy wants to ask, wants to probe and pick apart Jack’s past, but…if he did mean it…well, it was a pretty huge olive branch. “I’ll, uh, I’ll go and find one.”

“And leave your broken ass thing over there; we’ll run it on mine.” Jack calls after him.

\---

It’s…nice. Timothy wouldn’t say that Jack was over the moon with Chicago, but he seemed to like it more than Timothy thought he would. Sure, Jack looked over a couple of times when Timothy accidently started humming along, but it was…nice. Nicer than he expected to watch a musical with someone else. Sure, him and Vaughn watched some shows together: Star Trek, Red Dwarf, Firefly when Timothy had admitted to never watching it, but it was never the same.

Of course, it never felt like this with Vaughn, curling up on the couch, having to shuffle together to see the laptop perched on the coffee table. It’s still companionable and there’s still ‘room for Jesus’ as his middle school principle would say, but it’s…new. And Timothy is a sap who will take anything he can get.

All in all, it’s a pretty great evening.

And, okay, maybe he had Cell Block Tango stuck in his head for the next three days, so much that his boss looked at him funny, but he could have sworn he saw Jack hiding a smile.

\---    

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> oh my fuck, but Rhys is hard to write. Like, Rhys is one of my favs, but I never know what to do with him. This might call for another play through of Tales from the Borderlands. Not like I need much of an excuse for that, though 
> 
> so. Like, maaaybe I just realized I forgot about the LED until now. Whoops. I was just gonna pass it off, but then I realized, if the mask covered the damage…the LED would still be in. D’oh!.
> 
> Also; me, the demisexual, trying to talk about clubbing. Whooh boy. So, uh, if that bit ended up weird, you know why.
> 
> \--jokes aside, this is probably my least favorite chapter, but hey, you can't win them all--


	6. Light and Dark, Night and Day

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Because Timothy never wants to make it easy for himself.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> uh, I hope you like angst, because man did I really drag out some baggage.
> 
> also: I kinda skipped the last round of proofreading, but all I wanna do is publish while I have the time, so here.

“Vaughn,” Timothy whines drunkenly. “I fuckin’ hate you.” It’s a Sunday night, and Jack is who knows where and Timothy is sprawled on Vaughn’s Star Wars sheets while his friend finishes up some homework. “Why did you have to point it out?”

 Timothy doesn’t really expect Vaughn to answer, not when he’s been plunking away at math for so long, but Vaughn’s head immediately snaps up. He supposes it has been a while since they’ve hung out. “Bro, I’m not sure you even know what you're talking about; you're pretty plastered. Why don’t you go to bed?”

Normally, Timothy would think Vaughn’s trying to get rid of him, but lately he’s been pretty nice to Timothy when he’s had a few. It’s a good thing he’s drunk, though; sober, he might not be able to face the pity he can’t quite drunkenly comprehend.

 “I know what I’m talking about.” Timothy grumbles. “Been thinking about it over and over and over and when I’m sick of it, I just think of him _more_.”

He doesn’t see Vaughn freeze, just sips idly at his rum and coke. “Oh.”

“An’ I don’t know what the fuck I should do, you know? When I think I can handle it, he just does something else, something new and I think that he might like me, but I’m such a fucking idiot so…it’s gotta all be in my head.” Timothy struggles to grab his straw with his teeth. He sucks down a long drink once it stops being difficult. “I’m such a fucking loser.”

“Uh, hey, man,” Vaughn reaches over and pats Timothy’s shoulder awkwardly. It’s nice. “I mean, I don’t even know how to talk about what I _think_ you're talking about…but don’t talk about yourself like that, man.”

“Why?” Timothy mumbles. “It’s fucking true.”

“No. Not, it’s not, bro.” Vaughn sighs. “I thought you were getting better about this.”  Vaughn shifts awkwardly, but between them, Vaughn has always been better about talking about emotions; with Timothy it all just comes out in one big, rushed, cluster-fuck. “Like...You’re one of the nicest guys I know. Every time you share something about your past, the people you grew up with, and the things that happened to you…I don’t understand how you manage to be so nice. I don’t think I would be.” Vaughn frowns, closing his laptop. “And you work so hard.” Vaughn gives him a look when Timothy tries to interrupt. “I know you hated dropping out, but I know how hard you work to give yourself something of a stable life. Look…I’m an accounting major; I know you’ve been paying more of the bills.”

Timothy shifts, trying to fight his flush. “I mean, you're gonna make something of your life, man. I wanna help.”

“Yeah, and when I land a good job, you better believe I’m paying more of the rent.” Vaughn sighs. “Which is why I don’t get your obsession with assholes. None of those losers deserved you, man. Heck, _Jack_ doesn’t deserve you.”   

“He’s not that bad.” Timothy protests.

“Not that- Tim, you shouldn’t try to settle for ‘not bad.’”

“It’s more…it’s more than him being an asshole, Vaughn.”

“Tim.” Vaughn takes a deep breath. “Look, maybe after a couple of months we’ll go down to some singles meetups and maybe we won’t find anyone there…but it’ll be a start.”

“But-“

“Jack’s leaving at the end of the month, Tim. It…it doesn’t matter how many times you chat or-or you watch movies; he’s leaving, man, because, even though he’s an asshole…he’s been pretty upfront this whole time.”

\---

Timothy spends far too long staring at his own ceiling the next morning. Sure, part of it is the hangover and lack of pills, but mostly he’s been thinking about what Vaughn said. He wishes he was too drunk to remember any of it. He’s thinking and thinking and thinking, but he just ends up running through the same thoughts: why did he think things were going to work out, how could he have let himself be so fucking stupid, why did he have to go and run his stupid, drunk mouth off to Vaughn?

It could have been worse; he could have ran his mouth off to _Jack_. Which Timothy guesses mean no more drinking with company. The thought is only a little comfort, mostly because it’s the least depressing thought of the bunch.

\---

He can feel Jack watching in him in the rare moments when he’s wandering the apartment. Normally, Timothy has a strict rule about eating dinner or crumbly things in bed because he cleans up too much food as it is. He’ll put up with waking up with jam on his elbow, just as long as it means he can get some silence. If only his head would cooperate.

\---

He knows it’s bad, though, when his boss says something.

“Why don’t you take the next few days off, boy? Can’t have my best worker burning himself out.”

“I’m fine, boss. I’m just enjoying the work.” Still, Timothy is surprised; his boss is a grumpy, sour man who doesn’t even give out back handed compliments. Even though he’s been working there for a year and a half, he doesn’t know a single thing about his boss apart from the fact that he drank a lot and has a pet parrot.

Mordecai takes another pull from his cigarette. “Bullshit.” He says bluntly. “What are you running from, boy?”      

“Nothing,” Timothy hedges, but he can tell his boss doesn’t fall for it. Seriously, did he suddenly get terrible at lying? “It’s…complicated.”

His boss nods sagely. “Matters of the heart always are.”

“I didn’t say anything!” Timothy protests, but he’s pretty much gotten used to being woefully transparent.

“About time you found someone.” Mordecai continues like Timothy didn’t interrupt. “So why are you here, then?”

“It’s…” Timothy licks his lips. His boss really didn’t care. Could he? “It’s my new roommate.” Timothy says in a rush. “It’s just a stupid crush.” Timothy says bitterly, wiping down the counter.

“If it’s just a stupid crush, you might as well say something.” Mordecai lets loose a cigarette roughened cackle at Timothy’s horrified face. “If it’s not, all the more reason to say something.”

“It just- It’s not going to work out.” Timothy snaps, all the frustration of the past few days, couple of weeks, really, starting to show.

“And how do you know that, boy? I thought you hadn’t said something.”

“Because it’s me, okay! I don’t know who everyone thinks they see when they look at me, because they’re so fucking _wrong_! I mean, look at me! I’ve got no fucking prospects except working in this fucking taco truck, I’ve got nothing to my name but a butt load of debt and that’s just the start! And the rest of me…that’s just a fucking joke.”

Mordecai has nothing to say to that, much to Timothy’s relief, just watches the smoke curl out of his cigarette. “Take a couple of days off and get that head of yours in order.” Timothy is about to protest when Mordecai snaps at him. “That’s an order, boy. You come in tomorrow and you’re fired.”

Timothy flushes in shame; shame at his outburst, shame at dragging his shit to work. “Yes, sir.” Timothy says quietly, and finishes cleaning up for the day in silence.

\---

“How was your day, man?”

“Terrible. The absolute fucking worst.” Timothy snapped. He took a deep breath, letting it out slowly; there was no point in antagonizing Vaughn, too. “Boss gave me a couple of days off, but…” Timothy sighs, feeling so very, very exhausted. “All I kinda want to do is sleep. So tell me why you dragged me to the park so we can go home.”

“I just…” Vaughn looks down at his feet, hands shoved into his pockets as they wander the abandoned paths. “I’m sorry. About the other night.” Vaughn kicks at a pebble. “I thought it was what you needed to hear before you got in over your head.” Timothy laughs bitterly and Vaughn curls in on himself. “Yeah. I know. I should have guessed, but…I think I might get why. I didn’t before, but I think I do now.”

Timothy stops walking and it takes Vaughn a moment to notice. “You hate Jack.”

“I hate that he’s an asshole. I hate that he’s always rude and insults you and that he’s always one step away from violence. I hate that he doesn’t care about anybody but himself.” Timothy flinched. Vaughn…Vaughn was probably right. He’d trust just about anyone else’s opinions, anyone’s but his, at this point. “But I think I get it, now. About what you said about him being an emotionally stunted asshole.”

“You…think I was right?” The world must be falling sideways if Vaughn was changing his mind about Jack.

“He…” Vaughn sighs, scrubbing his face. “This is going to sound crazy, but he just…kept pinning me down, kept asking me about your mental health, about what might cheer you up and it was…” Vaughn looks disturbed. “like night and day, man. I mean, he still snuck in some insults…but like you said; it’s like he doens't know what to do with his emotions. I mean, I didn’t really know what to say, since we’re both typically busy and poor, but…I think he was going to do something soon, bro and I just…I wanted to clear the air, you know?”

Timothy’s head is spinning. He’s just about gotten used to idea that he’s fucked up and, no matter how many times he relieves this scenario, it’s just gonna end up the same; sad and lonely with Vaughn’s pity for company. What was he supposed to do with _this_?

“Tim?”

Timothy jumped, unable to ignore Vaughn’s worry. “I just…I need to think some more. Think I might just…walk around, you know?”

“Okay, man. I’m gonna, uh, go grab some more creamer.” Timothy knows for a fact they still have half a bottle left. “Text me if you need anything, bro.”

“Sure thing.” In a moment, it’s just Timothy and the waxing moon. The torrent of his thoughts isn’t quiet, but it’s quieter than before.

\---

It doesn’t really feel like he’s come to any conclusions, despite wandering the park for an hour. And yet, pushing the door open to the apartment, to _home_ , it feels like a relief instead of a prison. Jack is sitting in his usual spot and it’s almost, not quite, like the last few days haven’t happened. And maybe he has figured something out, because all he wants is to collapse next to Jack and just soak in his weirdly comforting presence. So, for once, he does just that, just sinks into the semi-comfortable cushions and stops second guessing himself. He closes his eyes and lets the tension bleed out of him with a sigh. Jack doesn’t say anything, which is fine; Timothy doesn’t really know what to say, anyway. He does feel the urge to tangle their fingers together, to explore the differences between human and artificial skin in minute detail. He doesn’t, though; he just lets the thought go and enjoys the relative silence in his head for the first time in days.

“’M sorry. My head’s…been a bit of a mess.” Timothy murmurs.

“Shut up, pumpkin.” Timothy smiles, and yeah, he probably shouldn’t be, because Jack sounds frustrated, but it’s the first time he’s heard a nickname in days and he’s missed this. “Go pick a movie.”

“In a minute.” Timothy sighs, pretending he’s not slumping into the couch.

“Fuckin’ fine.” Jack grumbles without any heat.

Timothy opens his eyes to see Jack stand and stride over to his room.

“What do you want?” Jack calls out from his room.

Timothy ran his tongue over his teeth as he thought. “Across the Universe? I think it’s on the third shelf?” So maybe a movie that’s half a romance is a bad idea, but the soundtrack is hard to beat.

\---

He forgets himself a time or two and starts singing along, but somewhere along the fourth song, he’s just stopped giving a fuck. He passes out about halfway through the movie and, without the excuse of alcohol; he can’t pretend that he put himself to bed. He’s tucked in nicely and there’s a glass of water on his side table and the care involved makes his face burn.  

Of course, it’s only when he’s drinking the water that he realizes that he probably fell asleep on Jack.

“You dying, Princess?” Jack shouts at Timothy’s choking.

“No!” Timothy croaks, face burning, but even so this…this is familiar.  

\---

“Better hurry your ass up, or you’ll be late.”

Timothy flopped down next to Jack, bringing his busted up laptop with him. “Boss sent me home for today and tomorrow.”

“That’s…nice of him.”

Timothy nods absently, pulling up solitaire while he waits for Netflix to load. “I’m pretty much the only regular there now; mostly it’s college kids working for a semester or two, so I’m the one that can cover just about any shift.” Timothy stifles a yawn and paws at his coffee cup. “What do you do, anyway?”

“Computer shit that would go way over your head.” Timothy nods in agreement and Jack snorts at him. “Learned it at my last place. It was just something of a hobby.”

“Do you sleep?”

“Not human.” Jack says with an eye roll that Timothy suspects is supposed to be more indignant. “I do have to go into stasis for four hours a day for maintenance and backing up my memory.”

“What else is different?” Jesus, Timothy’s mouth is _really_ running on autopilot. “Sorry, uh…don’t mean to be rude.”

Jack looks like he wants to say something, but just shakes his head. “I can do the whole skin thing.” Jack raises his hand up and disables his skin to show the white exoskeleton underneath. Timothy has seen pictures of android exoskeletons before, clean and white and disturbingly sterile. Jack’s, though, are covered in crisscrossing lines, some repaired rents, others melted, but there’s no more than an inch between any scar. “Creepy as fuck, though.” He reactivates the skin after a couple of seconds, and Timothy feels guiltily grateful. The lines are still there, though, distorting the epidermal layer, but the skin hides eighty percent of the damage. “Don’t eat, don’t drink…most of my bits are fully replaceable, but some shit they don’t make any more. I’m mostly original, though, except for some hardware upgrades.”

“Like what?” Timothy asks, computer abandoned on the coffee table.

“Better skin, more sensors, more efficient heating and cooling, bigger battery pack; that sort of thing. Just shit that would get me to sell.” Jack says sourly. “It was a big fucking reminder, but, hey, when you have to spend forty-eight hours a week hooked up to a charger or die…anything is an improvement.”

Timothy hates the look in Jack’s eyes; he doesn’t get it so much anymore, that haunted stare into memory. Timothy flounders. “If…if you could eat food, what would be the first thing you’d try?”

“Probably booze.” Timothy laughs and Jack grins at him, something like relief in his mismatched eyes. “that or chocolate cake. Toss-up between the two.”

“If I could only eat one thing…” Timothy mused. “It’d had to be cheesecake. Or key lime pie. Oooh or maybe apple.” Timothy’s stomach rumbles at the thought.

“Oh, go eat something, you show off.”

\---

Maybe, Timothy admits, that his boss had a point. Not about saying something, because Timothy can’t see how that would end well, but about taking a break. He’s been taking practically every available shift for a good few months now, but this little break was showing him just how much he needed to cut back. He doesn’t really mean to take the nap, but his laptop is on the coffee table and the blanket from his bed is spread over him. Timothy smiles dopily into the blanket and doesn’t even wonder where Jack ran off to.

\---

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> apparently, this story is a study in what random ass Borderlands characters I can throw together. I didn’t mean to toss in Mordecai, but really, what other vault hunter would think owning a broke down little food truck would be a good idea.


	7. Erroneous Data

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The four months come to a close.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Holy hell this chapter has been a ride, definitely the longest one by far.   
> I'm really, stupidly proud of this one, especially considering I had a roadblock to overcome that I hadn't anticipated. Let's be real, tho; this story has the loosest outline in the history of outlines.

Timothy is waiting for Jack to tell him to fuck off, but it never comes, even though he spends the whole day next to him. They don’t often spend enough time together for them to lapse into a comfortable silence, but it honestly feels like something they’ve done a million times and could do a million more. Timothy sneaks a glance at Jack every now and then, trying to picture the asshole he’s grown to care for acting like Vaughn claimed. He can believe it, in abstract, when he remembers those brief moments of vulnerability, mostly hazy under a layer of alcohol. Perhaps if Jack was laying the bravado on thick, it might have been more difficult to imagine, but curling here on the couch like it was a sick day, Timothy could see another side of Jack.

He wouldn’t say Jack was soft, because he doubted Jack was capable of it. There’s still an intensity about him as he hyper-focuses on the screen, a flurry of motion as his large fingers fly over the keyboard, that Timothy is all too familiar with, but its more…mellow. It takes Timothy a while to figure out what it is, takes him through a number of episodes of some reality dancing show, but when he sees it, it makes Timothy’s heart pound; Jack is _comfortable_. Something must have shifted some time ago, but Timothy is only noticing it now. He’s not scanning the apartment for danger, he’s not watching Timothy for a sign that CyberLife is coming to take him away, not hyper alert about Timothy trying to get a look at his screen. He wonders if this is what Jack might have been like, if they were just two humans or had simply met under different circumstances. It makes him feel, intensely, like he wasn’t wrong about Jack, as if there really was an alright guy hidden under the attitude.

He could be crazy. In fact, he might have thought he was crazy if it wasn’t for Vaughn’s abrupt shift in his opinion of the guy. He doesn’t know what to think about it, doesn’t really know what it means, but, curse him, he enjoys the warm feeling it gives him all the same.  

\---

Timothy cursed. “Sometimes I forget you're not human.”

“I don’t know whether to be flattered or insulted, princess.”

Timothy can’t help but smile. “Probably flattered; I got teased all the time for being scared of androids.”

Jack hums. “Never quite understood that, but then again; I never met another one until I got fixed up to be resold.”

“So you didn’t see another for…what? A couple years?”

Jack snorts. “Try eleven, kiddo. Not that I think I would have cared for the first three.”

Timothy tries to slot that into what little information he has of Jack’s past, all while trying to appear casual; he’s pretty sure the guy would clam up otherwise. “Was it…weird?”

Jack tries to shrug nonchalantly. “Had a lot on my mind.” Jack barrels through when he sees Timothy open his mouth again. “What the hell has you scared of regular old androids and not my handsome hunk of plastic?”

Timothy doesn’t know how he manages to act normal with the imagery _that_ conjures up, but he manages. Barely. “I dunno? A lot of reasons?”

Jack grins, and fuck, but Timothy is weak for it. “Humor me.”

Timothy looks, away, licking his lips. “It’s, you know…fear of the uncanny? I mean, you… _you’re_ obviously a person, but other androids…the way they just freeze between orders like they’re…soulless. I used to think it was, you know, the bare plastic that really freaked me out, but…it’s not the same with yours.” Jack raises an eyebrow and Timothy pushes on. “I mean, it’s still strange, okay, but not…disturbing? I mean, mostly I hate seeing all of that damage, but you're not…mimicking humanity, if that makes any sense? You're your own guy so…you're not an unknowable, unfeeling machine.”

“It could be all an act. You’re not really sure what the hell I’m doing.”

Timothy laughs. “Yeah, well, I trust you, man. I mean, has it all been pleasant? No, but…” Timothy shifted, trying to dispel the oddly serious undertones in their conversation, trying to shuffle so his blush couldn’t so easily be seen. “I’m glad we saved your ass off the scrap heap.” Maybe it isn’t what Mordecai would have scolded him into doing, but it’s more than he had planned on revealing. So maybe it’s not enough for his dreams to be a reality, but maybe…maybe Jack won’t cut all of his ties when he leaves to do whatever needs doing.  

Timothy goes to fish for his headphones, an indicator that he’s done talking, much in the way he’s learned to drop their conversation whenever Jack starts typing. “Why do you care so fucking much that I’m an android?”

Timothy drops his headphones. The fake bravado is back, but there’s something odd in Jack’s voice, something new. “I…uh…” _think you're really hot and I want to know everything about you_. Timothy ducks his head and pulls his computer onto his lap, leaving his headphones where they fell. God, but the guy knows just how to make Timothy flush. “It’s just…it’s what you are. And, uh, I know nothing about it and it just…seemed rude? To ignore it? I mean, I can just drop it, if you want, but…I dunno…” Timothy fiddles with his hands. “I just realized that it meant you’ve never played Cards Against Humanity, which is probably the biggest fucking crime.”

Jack is quiet for an age. Timothy is too nervous to do much more than fidget. “Shit, princess. You’re _sure_ you're still single, ‘cause you seem like one of those sickly sweet guys that women fucking gag for.”

It’s weird. It’s really fucking weird because Timothy is waiting for the derision that never comes. It almost…it almost makes him think- “Yep. Still single.” And Timothy jams his headphones in his ears so fast it hurts.

\---

The rest of the day passes lazily. Timothy can’t remember the last time he wasn’t avoiding thinking about something. The time isn’t quite worry free, because he still has no idea what to do about Jack and Timothy’s stupid feelings and the tentative nature of the whole situation, but with Jack there…well, it’s nice enough that he can believe he’ll have it all figured out before the month is out.

\---

It turns out Timothy was right about Cards Against Humanity. Somehow he manages to rope Vaughn in and it’s pretty great; laughing with his favorite people. He hasn’t heard Jack laugh so hard before or seen Vaughn let loose like that in months. Sure, maybe the rum and coke he splits with Vaughn makes him let his guard down a bit, but he catches himself staring sappily at Jack one too many times.

Vaughn gives him a look when they turn in for the night and Timothy realizes he hadn’t been half as subtle as he thinks he was.

\---

Timothy ducks out of his room stupid early in the morning, throat dry, but his head isn’t pounding for once. Now that he’s broken his self-imposed isolation, he can’t bear the thought of being in his room any longer. Sure, it’s six in the morning and he hasn’t been up that early since he was in high school and trying to ogle one of the joggers that passed his house, but he’s kinda craving some actual sunshine. He wonders if he can convince Jack to wander with him to the park down the road. At the moment, though, he’ll be satisfied with a glass of water, a cup of coffee, and a view of sunrise from the living room window.

He doesn’t even question Jack being awake. He sort of just takes it for granted, until he leans on the counted to drink his water and spots Jack curled up on the couch. Jack had said he needed to back up his memories or whatever, but Timothy hadn’t expected it to look so much like human sleep. He’d probably be trying to find the telltale android signs if he hadn’t been so distracted by Jack’s bare chest.

 It almost feels like he hasn’t seen a fit guy before, the way his brain just stutters to a stop. He can’t stop staring, eyes catching on dark nipples against tan skin, the ripple of his muscles, how hairless his chest is, when Timothy had imagined _something_.

Suddenly, Timothy can think of a very good reason to retreat back to his room. To change the shirt he mystifyingly spilled water on. Right. _Just_ that. Not to take care of the sudden tightness in his pants. Nope, nope, _nope_.  

\---

It can’t just be him.

There’s something up with Jack and Timothy can’t pin point what it is. It shouldn’t be surprising at this point; for everything Timothy learns about Jack, the Android just seems to up his game, confusing Timothy further.  

He knows Vaughn’s figured it out, because he has that weird, constipated look when he’s trying and failing not to judge, but the fact that Vaughn hasn’t said anything makes Timothy feel like he’s missed something huge.

Maybe he’d think it’s just his brain. Vaughn‘s talked about it kinda a lot at this point; a brain taking in data and erroneously fitting it into a negative world view. And the more he’s thinking about it, the more he’s seeing things that turned out wildly different from his expectations: his friendship with Vaughn, finding a steady job, this thing with Jack he’s trying not to think about, and, hell, maybe even the night he got stood up by Rhys.

Timothy wonders what it says about him.

Timothy wonders what he should do about it. If he can really afford the therapist that maybe…maybe Vaughn’s been hinting at for a long time.

He doesn’t even wonder if it’s possible to live without all that mess in his head; after all, it’s all he’s even known.

\---

“Sorry, _Amigo_ , but you’re an hour past closing time.”

Timothy breathes a sigh of relief; if he literally wasn’t five minutes from finishing cleaning up for the night, Mordecai would have definitely had him make whatever complicated order the customer demanded. The guy said that it was to improve customer relations, but those sorts of asshole never even returned; the rest of the time Mordecai didn’t seem to give a fuck about customer relations.

“ _Esta bien_. Just waiting for Timothy.”

What. The fucking. Hell?

Timothy poked his head around window and, sure as fucking shit, there was Jack, a beany tugged down to one side to hide the burned out LED. The guy should look out of place, especially since Timothy hasn’t even seen him out of the apartment, but he just looks…human. Okay, a weird, eccentric, unforgettable human, but he still looks human all the same.

Jack spots him and gives him a cool little wave.

Mordecai shoves Timothy back to his workstation. “Still on the clock, boy.” He turns briefly back to Jack. “We’re almost done here.”

“No problem.”

“Ooooh,” One of their part timers sidles up to Timothy. “Looks like _someone’s_ got a hot date!”  

“Shut up, Gaige!” Timothy whispers furiously at her, his face on fucking fire. “He’s just my roommate.” Which is probably the last thing he should have said with his boss so close.

“Roommate, huh?” Mordecai leans against one of the counters, playing idly with his lighter. “Funny he shows up to walk you home. Some might say that means something, boy.”

Gaige giggles at him, pigtails bouncing in excitement. Typically, Timothy likes Gaige; she’s more enthusiastic and friendly than their normal hires and even though her rambles about her studies go _way_ over Timothy’s head, she never seems to think less of him for it. To be fair, though; most of the hires that stick their noses up at Timothy don’t tend to last long. “And here I thought you were determined to stay sad and lonely! If you’re holding out for _him_ , though, I don’t blame you!” And if Gaige realized that Jack was an android, not to mention an android with free will…they’d probably have to beat her off with a stick. Mostly because she’d want to take him apart to see how he ticked. Mostly.

“Just-“ Timothy stuttered. “Just drop it, okay?”   

“Awww, you’re no fun, Timmy!” But Gaige is still grinning at him and Timothy flings a wet rag at her. She screams.

“Okay, back to work, children.”

“Sorry, boss.” They both chime in, with differing degrees of enthusiasm.

\---

“Sorry!” Timothy hurries over to Jack after waving goodbye to Gaige and Mordecai. The android had made himself comfortable on the top of one of the picnic tables, his computer settled across his lap, apparently pulled from Timothy’s abandoned messenger bag from school. Not that Timothy should be that surprised, but the whole scene has him laughing all the same. “What’s the point of coming all the way out here if you’re just gonna hop back on that thing?”

Jack tries to look offended, but it fades into a smile as he puts the laptop away. “Eh, needed to check something for a job, so I was out anyway.”

“You didn’t have to wait for me.” The thought sends Timothy’s stomach flip flopping. The lamplight on his two toned skin isn’t half bad, either.

Jack slings the bag on his shoulder. It looks infinitely better on Jack than it ever did on Timothy. “Pumpkin, it wasn’t even ten minutes in a decent fucking park.“ He gives Timothy an odd look, but shrugs. “Still gotta grab dinner?”

“Oh. Uh…Yeah.”

\---

So maybe it’s karma for laughing at Jack earlier, but having Jack stare at him while he’s eating is kinda unnerving. Timothy can’t even use his normal tactic of asking random questions about androids, smooshed as they are in a tiny booth. “What?” Timothy asks wearily around a mouthful of burger.

Jack tilts his head to the side, the motion weirdly mechanical in an endearing way, his grin growing wider. “C’mon, tell me about your love life, princess,” Jack leans back while Timothy chokes on his food, getting comfortable like this was the sofa, but, uh, the booth was _much_ smaller than the table. Their feet jostle and their knees bump and Timothy is almost glad he’s already choking on his food, because if he started now, it would look weird. He’d _almost_ be grateful, if only Jack isn’t so much of an asshole a

and didn’t ask _that_ question.

“You wanna ask that _now_?” Timothy whines.

Jack looks too fucking smug. Timothy can remember now why he used to think the guy was a complete tool. “When else am I gonna ask?”

“Seriously, sometimes I think all you want to do is drag up all the shit from my past.” Timothy grumbles, taking one last drag of his soda.

“C’mon, pumpkin; it can’t be that bad.” But he knows Jack now; sure the guy’s face doesn’t lose an inch of smugness, but there’s a slight uncertainty in his eyes, like he realizes he might have fucked up. 

“Yeah, that’s what Vaughn said, too.” But fuck Jack and his stupid fucking pride; the bastard doesn’t give an inch. Timothy sighs. “Fine.“ Timothy took a deep breath, casting his mind back to his high school days, days he’d much rather leave unremembered. “I…I didn’t date in high school. I lived in a fairly small town, big enough that it could handle half a dozen kids fleeing to the big cities, but…it’s not a place anyone really moves to, unless you’re sad and desperate.

“I was always the weird one; when I was a kid, it was because I had no dad, in middle school it was because I didn’t like anything anyone else liked, and in high school…” Timothy shrugged. “Yeah, it was because I was the fag. Which, let me tell you, was confusing as hell when I _also_ had constantly had crushes on the popular girls. So, yeah, didn’t date in high school. I mean,” Timothy fidgets, looking anywhere but at Jack. “I was a teenage guy, and I was sorry about it as hell and even though I knew it was never going to happen…I still got into, well, a lot of fucking trouble because…I dunno…” Timothy squeezes his hands together, knuckles turning white. “I guess in retrospect I was super easy to manipulate. I mean, typically it was the popular kids using me to get back at each other or get me to do something they didn’t want to or…literally a thousand other things. I don’t…I don’t even see the point now. I mean…they _had_ to know that it wasn’t my fault that any of that shit happened…but three guesses as to who was left bleeding on the locker room floor.”

Timothy glances at Jack. The android looks floored, like Timothy is something sad and pitiful and shocking. It angers Timothy in a way Jack hasn’t managed since the beginning. “And do you know how fucking relieved I was to leave that town? Do you know…how- how excited and _hopeful_ I was to just…start over? And it was hardly any different. Oh, the people were more polite, so instead of trying to cover up bruises and stop bloody noses, it was just having my heart and my hope crushed over and over and _over_ again and pretending like it was _fine_!” It’s not something he’s said before. He doesn’t know why he could talk about his hometown, not when it seemed worse in his mind, but he couldn’t…he couldn’t talk about this. “And I just had to keep going and keep trying and pretend I didn’t feel just as trapped as I was before and I-“

A hand closes around Timothy’s and the gentle touch shocks him into silence. “That’s enough, Tim. Let’s go home if you wanna talk about it some more.”

Timothy blinks, looking around at the restaurant. He catches people quickly looking away.

“Besides, if you keep going I’m gonna punch the next fucker who looks at you wrong.”

Timothy nods numbly, trying to ignore the press of everyone’s attention. He doesn’t even think twice about throwing away his barely eaten food.

\---

There’s a knock at his bedroom door and Timothy doesn’t have the energy to tell whichever friend it is to fuck off. He should have been asleep hours ago, but his mind can’t seem to replay old, painful memories or show him proof, over and over again, of why he’s going to be single forever.

 Jack pushes the door open anyway, and fuck but Timothy should be mad at him for invading his space, but Jack brings with him the light of the living room and the scent of buttery popcorn and a reprieve from his thoughts.

Timothy watches silently from the bed as Jack putters around in the darkness of his room, laying the popcorn on the nightstand and digging for Timothy’s laptop among yesterday’s mess. Something clears in Timothy’s head, eases in his chest. He can’t say what exactly does it, but at this point he’s just desperate enough to drink it in.

“Scoot over, pumpkin, and I’ll get whatever you want to watch.”   

\---

“Thanks.” Timothy chokes out eventually, closing his eyes for a long heartbeat as just feels the moment; hears the familiar tune of Cats playing on the laptop, feels where their sides press together, platonically, sure, but it’s just about as much as anyone has ever offered. “For getting me out of my head.”

Jack shrugs, idly crushing popcorn between his fingers and pretending he wasn’t watching Timothy. “Well, you warned me, so…”

It’s not exactly an apology. From anyone else it would have been a cop out, a lame attempt at an apology they don’t really mean.

Timothy leans against Jack briefly. “I mean it, Jack. I just wanted you to know.”

A popcorn cornel shoots from between Jack’s fingers and hits Timothy on the forehead. “Okay, fine! I see how it is; I’ll quit it with the sappy stuff!” Timothy says with a laugh, rubbing at his head.

They lapse back into silence and it’s…homey; it’s a balm to his aching memories. Because there was one thing he didn’t tell Jack, one thing that’s still too sore to touch; he probably would have accepted it all with a smile if he could just have a friend.

Maybe a more hopeful, less broken Timothy would have tried to make the moment more, might have embarrassedly grabbed Jack’s hand or curled against him or just fucking said something like his boss keeps urging…but he doesn’t. Because anything is better than nothing.

\---

Things shift. Half of the time they hang out they lounge on Timothy’s bed with the door closed. It’s dangerous, the way Jack looks relaxed on his bed, this unexpected softness under all those barbed words. Timothy can’t help but stare, not with the way Jack’s shirt rides up, not with the way he gazes up at Timothy through dark lashes and soft hair, not with the way his long legs stretch out across the bed. 

His dreams are more vivid. He feels a bit like a creep, but it all seems inevitable, not now that he can just about imagine the way Jack feels against him, too firm to be human, not now that he knows what Jack looks like grinning against Timothy’s pillows.

And if that wasn’t bad enough, as if he already wasn’t desperate as hell, it all gets _worse_.

\---

“-and then, I swear, Gaige has everything on the fucking griddle on fire and Boss just-just _sighs_ like it’s _nothing_ while I’m freaking the fuck out and, I swear to God, just fucking _chugs_ this flask I didn’t even know the fucker had like it’s water.”

Jack’s laughing and it’s fucking beautiful and Timothy doesn’t even mind anymore that he smells like a house fire and has ash all over his hair and face. “Sounds like someone needs a drink.”  

“Well, it’s not Boss, I can tell you that.” Timothy quips, running a hand through his hair. “I’m gonna hop in the shower.” Timothy claps Jack on the shoulder, leaving a nice, sooty handprint behind. “oops.”  
            “Eh, go take your shower.”

\---

Timothy feels infinitely better after the shower. He thinks about watching a movie with Jack, drink in hand, maybe using that little helping hand of liquid courage to curl against him, nothing that would be too ridiculous for an affectionate drunk. He just…doesn’t know the last time he’s so much as hugged another human being. He literally can’t remember it. And with Jack being so close and so receptive…it’s literally impossible for him to ignore and harder to resist.

He finds Jack standing at the counter with his back to him. Timothy takes a moment to admire the android, wonders idly how it would feel to press up against him. Shit, he’s gotta stop these thoughts. “Jack?”

The android jumps and spins, fumbling a glass filled with something dark, when Timothy has never seen Jack fumble anything. The android curses, pulling his sopping shirt away from his skin.

“You okay?” Timothy asks stupidly. He can smell the Coke now, standing this close.

“Yeah, just not sure what to do with this fucking thing.” Jack says distastefully. Right before he pulls the whole fucking, thrice-damned shit off in one smooth motion.

The ungodly noise Timothy makes would be embarrassing as hell, if all of his attention wasn’t caught on those smooth muscles, the moisture on them, the dark liquid running down them.

“Something wrong, Princess?”

Timothy freezes. “I, uh, no! Nope! I’m cool!” His brain is running about a thousand miles a minute trying to find _something_ reasonable to explain his behavior, but his mind unhelpfully keeps replaying that stupid, lickable bead of soda dripping down his abs.  

“Cool.” Jack brushes past him and Timothy doesn’t know where to look, just tries to take in the view of Jack’s bare back and tattoo it on his eyeballs. “Help me wash this; I haven’t used that outdated machine of yours.”

Timothy trails after Jack, mesmerized by his shifting muscles, the fact that his is ass is more on display than it’s ever been before. _Shit_. What does android skin even _taste_ like?

Jack hums tunelessly as he chucks the shirt in the washing machine. “Sweating must be ball fucking inconvenient. Shit, then you’d have to wash shit all the time.” Jack turned to him, leaning back against the washing machine, an eyebrow raised. _Shit_. _Fucking_ hell. “So how do we do this, princess?”

Timothy clamps down on a noise at the images _that_ sentence create. It does, however, restart his brain. “Right. Washing. Soap.”

The space is tight and the normally straightforward business of starting a load is so much more…complicated. Jack always seems to be just in the way, just enough that Timothy has to reach over him or bump into him slightly. It’s driving him up the fucking wall. But it gets done, _somehow_ , with neither party saying nor doing something they shouldn’t have.

_Fuck_! Timothy’s going to have to spend an entire _hour_ around a shirtless Jack. There’s no way he’s going to last that long.

 Jack runs his fingers through the now tacky, mostly dried mess. The sight sends Timothy’s brain down some wicked, _wicked_ trains of thought.

“Shit, didn’t think it’d get so sticky.” Jack crosses back over to the sink and – oh _Christ_ \- starts wiping at his stomach with a too wet paper towel.

Timothy should go. It’s too fucking much; the hard on he’s been trying and failing to will away twitches with a vengeance and it’s only by biting his tongue so hard it hurts he stays silent. The water dripping freely down Jack’s abs. The tight peak of his dark nipples. _Oh mother of_ _Christ_.

Which is when Vaughn gets home, finding Jack being a fucking wet dream and Timothy fighting not to cream his pants like he’s a stupid horny teenager. It’s enough mortification that he’s strong enough to flee to his room. It’s not enough shame to ease the problem in his pants, though.

\---

He thinks he hears Jack and Vaughn talking that day, but he can’t be sure. If they are, though, it’s clear they don’t want Timothy to hear.

He lies there for a while after he’s taken care of himself, staring at the ceiling. He’s not really panicking, but it’s clear now, in a way that’s getting too obvious to ignore, that he’s too far over his head. The month has slipped by without him noticing, too of his attention wrapped up in Jack. He’s still no closer to a solution than he was at the beginning.

It’s never…it’s never been this good with another person. It’s not just the infatuation; it’s the quiet nights, it’s the quiet glimpses of care that grow to something even _he_ can’t deny, it’s the thought that maybe –maybe- he could have more people in his life than Vaughn, even though he had felt so fucking blessed to have that much.

He doesn’t know what it will do to him if Jack leaves. He can’t bear to think about it; if all of the other times were that painful…how many more multitudes of pain was this going to be.

He’s tired. He’s so tired of thinking this way, of being wrapped up in his own head.

So he doesn’t even think twice about leaving his room with his laptop and a movie and an oversized hoodie. He sinks down next to Jack on the sofa, who just seems to be staring frustrated at a blank Excel document. Doesn’t think twice when Jack pushes away his laptop or about scooting so close that all it would have taken was resting his head against Jack’s shoulder to make it something more.

Yeah, Timothy’s fucked…but when has it ever been different?

\---

What really trips him up, what really sends him for a loop, is what _should_ be a simple question and a simple event. It would be simple, if it wasn’t Jack.

\---

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> gosh, this update has been long in coming. I managed to get stuck on BOTH stories and I –almost- started another one to get back into the groove. But, uh, between three paintings, a hat, a dozen sewing ideas, and a couple of video games, it just didn’t seem like a prudent idea.  
> I technically have chapter 8 written...but I wrote it during chapter 5....and as you might guess, things progressed WAY farther than I had expected with a lot more turns along the way, but I suppose I didn't account for the mess in Timothy's head. I think I have a good bit of editing ahead of me, but its only going to make it more awesome!


	8. Freedom and Salvation

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter, the more I kept looking at it, the more it needed another scene. So here we are. And I'm pretty pooped so I'll let you get to reading.

“Tim.”

Timothy’s head snaps up. It’s weird, hearing Jack use his actual name, but what’s weirder is how serious he is, from his stiff lean against the doorframe, to his deep frown, to the fact that he can’t seem to look Timothy in the eyes. “Yeah?” Timothy says hesitantly.

“I…”Jack seems to glare at nothing for a moment, lips pursed in thought. “Think you can come with me somewhere?”

Timothy blinks. Jack…Jack’s not normally a guy who, well, _asks_ for anything. That probably doesn’t say anything good about Timothy’s tastes, but he knows now that Jack isn’t really being dickbag, he just has the social graces of a toddler. The fact that he’s _asked_? Timothy is automatically nodding. “Of course, man. Need me to get ready now?”

Jack relaxes slightly, just enough so that the frown loosens somewhat. “Yeah, if you could.”

\---

Surprisingly, Jack takes them to a park. Two months ago, Timothy would have thought about explosives or something equally terrorist-y, but he knows Jack by now; as shocking as it is, there’s a vast difference between a jackass and a bomber.

That still doesn’t answer any of the mystery; there aren’t many things to do in a park, and maybe Timothy would think it’s some sort of…final hurrah? And yet Jack is too on edge for this to be anything other than part one of his plan. The uncertainty is unnerving enough, but Jack looks tense as fuck, and the fact that he _asked_ Timothy….well, it has him twitchy as hell.

They’re there for miserably long hour before Jack perks up. Timothy tries to scan the crowd, tries to pick out someone bland with a discrete package, or maybe some young android freedom fighter he’s been in contact with, but…no. From his slump next to Jack he can follow his line of sight, but the look on Jack’s face stops him. The android sitting in beside him looks almost like a different person. His face is soft, mouth slightly parted as he watches, looking like he wants to spring up, but is holding himself back for some reason.

And just like that, Timothy gets it. Just like that, it grips Timothy like a vice, crushing all of the air out from him, coating his body in an inch of ice; Jack wasn’t working on some grand plan to take over civilization, to take out the government or CyberLife or anything so petty. It would fit his personality to a ‘T’ if he did, but how long has Timothy been wondering what goals were hidden under the bravado?

No, he was working so hard for someone he loves. Which was why, after all of this…he was going to be gone. It hits Timothy like a freight train, the worries he’s been trying not to face and the proof he’s been desperately trying to cling to, the reality of going back to an apartment where no one lives on the couch, where him and Vaughn hang out and he tries not to feel like a needy fucker when Vaughn hangs out with his other friends.

He doesn’t want to see, but he follows Jack’s gaze anyway. If he doesn’t, he knows he’ll just spend days staring at his ceiling, wondering what that other person looked like, if they were a tall, willowy woman or a man with soft brown hair and eyes.

    When he sees her, he almost looks past her, trying to pick out someone he thinks Jack might be attracted to, a strong, sharp eyed woman perhaps, with all of the backbone Timothy lacks. But his eyes inexplicably turn back to her. The girl can’t be much older than sixteen, seventeen on the outside. She’s well put together for a Goth teen, wearing clothes that seemed to mesh the styles an android’s uniforms and post-apocalyptical elements, her dark hair is meticulously styled with a side shave. And yet…behind the carefully crafted exterior she looks so tired; her large, soulful eyes are dark with some inner turmoil, her face drawn.

 He’s about to turn and ask Jack ‘what the fuck?’ or get up and leave or just sit there, staring at his thumbs, when she turns and he sees it, a familiar sketch of wings stenciled onto her messenger bag.

“Angel,” Timothy breaths. It doesn’t help, exactly, knowing the name of the reason Jack’s leaving, but…well…at least it wasn’t a spur of the moment thing. At least he was planning on leaving Timothy and the couch and his stupid wall covered in plans from the beginning, just like Vaughn said he would.

His voice snaps Jack out of whatever trance he was in. “I didn’t think you remembered.” Jack says softly. Timothy doesn’t know what expression is on Jack’s face; he can’t bear to look at him.

Timothy shrugs like it means nothing. “Well,” Hell, his voice is far from steady, but he carries on anyway. “I didn’t think you wanted me to.” Timothy clears his throat, trying to speak around the lump in his throat. “Is she...uh…?”

“You know what I am,” Jack admitted quietly. “It’s all…it’s all complicated as hell. She was my second owner’s kid. I watched Angel grow up, helped her with her homework, made lunch when Amanda forgot, looked after her when she was sick. That sort of thing.”

“So she’s…your daughter?”  Timothy asked. In any conceivable universe, this was the last thing he had expected.

Jack twitches violently beside him. “I-“ Jack pauses, tilting his head as he seemed to think instead. “It seems kinda fucked up…but,” Jack shrugs, blinking rapidly. “I don’t got a better explanation.” They sit together in silence for a moment, Jack digesting this new twist in his admittedly weird existence.  “She looks like shit. I know they weren’t abusing her…”

“They?” Timothy can’t help but ask; he still can’t resist asking when Jack’s ready to talk.

“The foster home.” Jack says it like it’s nothing. “Checked up on her the minute I figured out where they were keeping her.”

“Why…why was she at a foster home?”

Jack blinks and it’s the most mechanical Timothy’s ever seen him. “Because I killed her mother.”

Jack looks…tired, exhausted on a soul-deep level that has Timothy reaching out for him. “Why?” Timothy asks quietly, hand lightly touching Jack’s jaw. Timothy’s mind screams at him to withdraw, to not be so fucking transparent, but it’s now or never, isn’t it?

Jack slumps as if his joints collectively give out, leaning into the touch, leaning into Timothy. He knows it doesn’t mean anything, but his heart stops anyway. “Because she was a piece of shit. She was never good to Angel, but I just…I thought we could make it until she hit eighteen. Then I could send all of the fucking evidence and Angel wouldn’t have to go to one of those _fucking_ homes. But Amanda got worse, ya know. Those last couple of years got _bad_. Had to chase asshole after asshole out of the house…Sometimes I had to lock Angel out of the house to keep her away.” Jack murmured. “I just…I couldn’t let her be _treated_ like that. It wasn’t anything different that night. Oh, I could pretend to be the better man and say that she was putting Angel’s life in danger.” Jack let out a shuddering breath. “But it was just a night, like any other fucking night. And she started- she started saying those things.” Jack’s hand twitched violently, his eyes squeezed tight. “’useless, stupid, not worth the space, more trouble than you’re fucking worth,” Jack’s voice suddenly changed, words glitching out between phrases, alternating between the rough voice of an old woman and a younger, drunker female. His hand spasms like he wants to tear something apart. Timothy grabs it, stupid as hell with the android’s unchecked strength, but Jack seems to snap out of it, calming under his touch, leaning against Timothy like he’s a lifeline. Even now, Timothy can’t seem to stop those dangerous thoughts. “and I just…I saw red. And when I came back to myself I heard- I heard Angel crying and Amanda dead on the floor and the police officers bust in the door.”

“Shit.” Timothy whispered, feeling helpless. He always wondered about the shotgun blast to the face. He hadn’t imagined it would be anything like _this._

Timothy looked up and the girl -Angel- was sitting on a bench just with their line of sight, tapping away at a tablet and looking like she wasn’t going to move for a while.   

“Why are you still here?” Jack asks when he seems to regain some of his composure.

“Well,” Timothy says slowly, heart hammering in his chest. He ought to let go of Jack now that he’s better, but Timothy just…doesn’t. It’s stupid and selfish and painful…but he can’t make himself move. “where else would I go?” Timothy finally pulled away, giving his shoulder a daring squeeze. He followed Jack’s gaze over to where Angel was sitting. “You gonna talk to her?”

“I…” There’s a sadness to Jack’s eyes, made of up loss and pain and longing. “Nah. She’s got her whole life ahead of her. She’s got the money from her mom and she’s gotten into a good school…she doesn’t need me anymore.”

That’s too much for Timothy to bear. Despite everything, despite every stupid thing he wants… _this_ is too much. He stands up, glaring down at Jack. “You’re gonna get up off your sorry ass and go talk to her.” Jack looks like he’s going to start yelling at him. “You’ve spent all this time working and for what? So you can walk away?” Timothy tugs the android up. Of course, Timothy knows he couldn’t actually move the guy, but that isn’t what’s important. “Who would have thought Jack, of all people, was a fucking coward?” It’s only through sheer force of will that his voice doesn’t crack.

“This is a shit time for you to grow a spine, princess.” Jack grumbles, but goes when Timothy pushes him, eyes never leaving Angel.

Timothy feels like he should walk away. He’s not sure what would have happened if he let Jack be and they just went back to the apartment…but he’s not sure he can unsee Jack’s hopeless expression. It’s weird and wrong watching him walk away, knowing that Timothy all but shoved him on that path. But he stays.

Because he’s weak.

Because anything is better than nothing.

 God, Timothy’s going to get so drunk tonight, actually get out from the apartment, find a shitty bar, and maybe dance a little. Anything to stop him from feeling.   

“ _Mija_ ,” Jack murmurs, and the girl looks up.

She squints, suspiciously, and Timothy has nearly forgotten that they replaced his face, that Angel would remember a completely different face. “What do you want?” Angel says aggressively, and Timothy recognizes the way she puffs herself up; it’s all Jack. It’s ineffective with her tiny frame, but it makes Timothy’s heart melt all the same. 

“Angel…” Jack turns, just for a moment, eyes finding Timothy’s. He turns back to the girl, shoulders square, braced for a challenge. “It’s me, mija.”

Angel’s eyes grow wide, tears springing to her eyes, but she holds herself back. “No. I don’t know who you are, but- but he died. Jack died.”

“Angel…”

Her eyes harden as she looks him up and down. “What does the ‘H’ stand for?” She sets her jaw defiantly, eyes sharp in challenge.

Jack’s shoulders slump, and if Timothy didn’t know better, he say that Jack let out a sob. “Handsome, baby girl.”

With a sob, Angel launches herself into Jack’s arms.

Timothy doesn’t know how long he stands there, watching the android and the girl hug each other like the world was going to end. It’s…good; it’s a nice, sweet ending to a story that maybe shouldn’t have gotten one. It’s a damn sight better than any ending Timothy is going to get. Maybe when he steps away, it’ll hit him; maybe then his role in this story won’t seem fair or right, but for now…now the world seems like an okay place.

He’s just about to leave when Jack’s eyes meet his, locking on and holding him in place. He pulls away from Angel and he’s dragging her over. “There’s someone I want you to meet.” Angel is looking at Timothy now, sharp blue eyes evaluating his face, and he tries desperately not to fidget, wondering at what she sees there. “This is Timothy.”

“Uh, hi!” Timothy says awkwardly, because, really, what else is Timothy supposed to say?

“Hi. I’m Angel.” She holds out her hand and he shakes it briefly before awkwardly shoving his hands back into his hoodie.

“Nice to meet you,” Timothy mumbles; his brain, inanely, starts playing RENT. He wonders if he’s every going to be able to watch the musical the same way again.

“This is the sap that took me in,” Jack explains.

“I’m not a sap! And it was mostly Vaughn, anyway.” Timothy grumbled, cheeks heating.

“Yeah, you are. And you don’t take enough credit.” Jack says with an eye roll.

Timothy spares a nervous glance at Angel, but she’s smiling, watching them with amusement. “Listen, I was gonna head back to the apartment,” Timothy says awkwardly, jerking his thumb over his shoulder.

“I was thinking of bringing Angel over, later,” Jack says cautiously.

“Yeah, sure.” Timothy agrees before he can think too hard about his beating heart or his wide grin. Or, for that matter, think about what a fucking mess the apartment is. “You fucker. I’m gonna spend hours cleaning.” Jack just laughs at him. “You own me, man.” It’s out before Timothy remembers that it’s probably only a matter of days before Jack is gone from his life.

“Sure, I do, pumpkin.” Jack says sarcastically, but Timothy knows him well enough to know that Jack was actually planning on paying him back. Like…like Jack was maybe thinking of hanging around.

Timothy turns with a wave, needing to get out of there before his brain fries.

“He seems sweet.” Timothy can hear Angel says and Timothy picks up the pace, not wanting to hear Jack’s response.

“Yeah, he is.” And it’s so fucking fond that his heart honest to god skips a beat. It sounds so sentimental in stories, but in real life it hurts like a punch to the gut. “Sweet as sin.” Jack sighs wistfully.

“Really?!” Angel squeaks, but there’s delight coloring her voice. 

But then, thankfully, Timothy’s out of the park, jogging the long way home, hoping against hope that he can get his head clear. Vaughn is going to _kill_ him, because there’s sure as shit no way his figuring out this mess on his own.

\---  

“What the hell, Bro?” Vaughn yelps and Timothy slides in the seat across from his roommate.

Okay, to be fair, Timothy hasn’t made it on campus, not to mention the library, in at least six months. It’s been even longer, if you ignore the times he’s been forced to do it. “I…uh…” Even though his thoughts were swirling the entire jog over here, he has no idea what to say.

Something about Timothy must be transparent to Vaughn. “Bro, I got class in an hour.” He sighs. “Go figure that asshole would do something _now._ ” Timothy blinks. Okay, maybe he’s being a thousand times more transparent than he thought.

\---

“Rhys.”

“What the hell, man?” Rhys sounds like utter shit, which is impressive over the doggy phone line. “I’d be at work if I didn’t call in sick!”

Timothy shifted, looking embarrassedly at the other people down the street he was walking; _this_ was why he never called people. “Sorry, man. I didn’t realize…Vaughn has class in an hour so…”

Rhys sighs. “This is what I get for calling in for a hangover…” He murmurs to himself. “So what’s your guy done now?”

Timothy stops dead in his tracks, but, honestly, why else was he calling? “I…uh…I dunno man. It’s just…I didn’t tell you the whole story, earlier.” Timothy took a deep breath. “Not…not because I didn’t trust you or anything. I just...” Timothy laughs bitterly. “I’m just shit at emotions and –fuck- I guess I didn’t want to admit it to myself. He was…he was planning on moving on after, well, this week. But I dunno…I just…I think…”

“Woah man, just…take a breath, okay?”

“I thought it was hopeless, okay?” Timothy barrels forward, ignoring Rhys. “But things have been going so well and I wouldn’t think much of it, just us being better friends, but he just- and I just met his _fucking daughter_ and I don’t…What if he…?“

“Hey, hey, hey, breathe, Tim! C’mon, don’t make me responsible for you passing out in the middle of the street, man!”

It takes a minute. It’s not the first time he’s gotten so worked up, and though it’s completely embarrassing, the way the river of people mindless flow around him is comforting if only for how familiar it is. It was the thing he liked most about not being in his hometown; that feeling of fading into a crowd. “Sorry, man. I-“ Timothy winces. “I wasn’t thinking. I, uh, shouldn’t have called. Sorry for bothering you…”

“Hey, hey, hey!” Rhys shouts, too loud in his ear. “You can’t just tease me like that and stop!”

“Why…why are you, uh, interested in, well…any of this?”

“’Why?’ Dude, I don’t know if you know this, but you're kinda like this big mystery? Like, there’s the version of you in Vaughn’s stories and then there’s the quiet guy whenever we come over…but, like…dude, you _don’t_ let anyone in. I mean, I get it; it’s not like I have real relationships, either. It’s cool, not to be the greatest at sharing, But, like…you’re actually opening up, and, hey, not sure what I did to deserve it, but I’m touched either way.”

Did…that mean they were friends? Where the hell was Timothy when that happened? “I…thanks, Rhys. “ It doesn’t convey how grateful his is, not by a long shot, but if he starts, he’s not sure that he could stop. And that would probably make everyone uncomfortable.

“Yeah, no problem,” Rhys says dismissively, but maybe he’s just as uncomfortable as Timothy. “So this fucking sexy guy walks into your life, gonna be gone in a month or so…sounds pretty strait forward so far. So what’s the catch?”

“It’s…I dunno; a lot’s happened over the last month. I mean…my head was a big fucking mess for, urgh, too much of it, but…I dunno. I guess he just…let me in. I thought we were just friends, but I’m not sure? I’ve never…I’ve never been right before. I’ve…never been someone’s first choice, you know?” Timothy lets out a long breath. “And now that I might be…I mean, what the fuck do I _do_? Not...not that I really expect you to help with that; I get that, man. I just…I keep trying to convince myself that I’m wrong, because… _fuck_ , I’m not sure if I can handle being wrong _again_ , Rhys. I’m just…I’m just so fucking tired.”

“Uh, Tim,” Rhys says after a long pause. “I don’t really know what I can do to help. I mean, I want to…but you know the background I’m coming from, man.”

Timothy nods inanely. “Can I just…can I just run you through my thinking and…I dunno, see if you agree with me?”

“Sure. Of course I can do that.” Rhys says, sounding relieved.

“So,” Timothy pauses, taking a deep breath. “I didn’t even…consider it until, like, thirty minutes ago. He…uh, he asked me to come with him while he met his daughter for the first time in months. Well, I mean, the cagy fucker didn’t say _why_ we were going…anyway…it was something he said to her afterwards.”

“Aaaand you didn’t think something was up when invited you for that?” Rhys asks, bewildered.

“Well-! I mean-! I haven’t had much time to think about it, alright! But, uh,” Timothy shuffles. “I probably wouldn’t have.”

“So what did he say?”

“Uh…” Timothy blushes just thinking about the way Jack said it. “He called me sweet.”

“Bro, I’m happy to tell you that that’s _pretty_ freakin’ gay.” Rhys sounds pretty delighted. “C’mon, man, you got any more proof? This is kinda fun!”

“Well…” Timothy casts his mind back over the last few weeks especially. ”He _did_ pick me up from work.”

“Gay.”

“And…sorta took me out for dinner, even if he _did_ botch the whole thing.”

“Dude, he took you out on a fucking date!”

“What?” Timothy squeaks. “No, I would have-“ But would he? Wasn’t that the whole point of getting an outside opinion?

“Trust me, bro.

Anything else, even things you’ve already dismissed?”

“Well, we’ve…started watching movies together. Well…mostly, uh, mostly my musicals.”

“Where do ya watch ‘em?”

“Uh…”Timothy fidgeted. “On my bed mostly. We used to watch them on the sofa, but…I’m not really sure when that changed?”

“Nice job, man!”

“I wasn’t trying!” Timothy whines. “I guess…I guess there was also the soda incident…” Timothy’s breath gets a little shallow just thinking about it.

Rhys starts laughing. Like really, really laughing. “This isn’t that fucking trick where the guy _conveniently_ spills a drink on himself and take off his shirt, is it?” The noise Timothy makes when it all slides into place only makes Rhys laugh harder. “ _Shit_ , man! Oh he is so, _so_ into you! That only happens when they’re either new to it or desperate as hell. I mean, if you can’t get the point across, just fucking take off your clothes, I always say. Did _not_ think I’d run into someone who it _wouldn’t_ work on!”

“Rhys-!” Timothy wines.

He must sound really distressed, because Rhys winds down. “Sorry, sorry, but, like, you get your dude. It’s just…it’s really fucking ridiculous and really stupidly sweet.”

“But,” Timothy murmurs, blood pounding in his ears. He thought he couldn’t handle Jack leaving…but wanting what Timothy want…what is supposed to _do_? “why would he want me?”  
            Rhys sobers instantly. “Umm. Well. It’s kind of a no brainer. It’s _you_. I mean, why _wouldn’t_ he? Okay. It’s just, and I do mean this is a complete ‘no-homo’ sort of way. Well, sort of homo, ‘cause were both sort of- you know what; never mind.” Rhys clears this throat. “What I’m trying to say is…you’re a nice guy, Tim. Like, a _really_ nice guy. I mean, yeah, I know you don’t like Yvette, but, honestly…whenever I have a shitty day and I’m trying to not show it…you’re the first one to notice. And you always ask me about it, even though I know it makes you feel awkward as hell. You remember when I told you my grandma died?” Timothy hums in agreement, having problems just digesting all of it. “You were the first person I told. It took me a week before I told anyone else. You just…you listen, man. You care. And not a lot of people do that, despite what they like to pretend. And of course,” Rhys laughs. “you’re hot as hell, so that doesn’t hurt either.”

“I…” Timothy tries, but he’s at a loss for words. He had just…honestly tried to stay out of the way when Vaughn had his friends over. He hadn’t been trying to make friends with Rhys, but he hadn’t liked seeing him hurt, either, while other people just ignored it. Timothy didn’t want to live in a world where no one tried…even if the only one who did was Timothy himself. “I wasn’t trying to be a good person.”

“I know. Which, I dunno, sort of makes it better? It’s more honest. You can…tell, I guess, when it’s real.”

“Huh.”

“Well, you think on that. But not too long, ‘cause, like, either he’s gonna think you're not into him or he’s gonna _really_ step up his game. Which, like, _I_ would think is flattering as hell, but you…I don’t think you’d be as thrilled.”

“I…okay.” Timothy says finally, letting out a long breath. “I can do this.”

“Yeah, like, you don’t even have to do that much work; just says yes and then the _fun_ happens.”  

“Rhys-!”

“Fine, fine!”  Of course, Rhys doesn’t sound sorry at all. Timothy kind of wonders what kind of guy Rhys is picturing him having sex with. Perhaps he wonders with a morbid curiosity, because he’s never been friends with someone so fucking blatent, but Timothy figures he’s going to have to get used to it. “We’ll have drinks when I’m back, yeah? Just you and me so you don’t have to worry about Yvette.”

“That…that sounds great, man.”

“Just don’t sweat it, man.”

“Thanks. I…thanks. But, uh,” Timothy blinks. “Shit, I gotta go. I got to clean our fucking pigsty of an apartment and, shit, probably should make dinner.”

Rhys is laughing at him again, but it’s a good laugh. “You are _so_ pussy whipped! Go on, get going, impress your man. And don’t be a stranger; seriously, some of the shit that’s going down over here is so strange, you’re not going to believe it.”

\---

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *Mija means ‘my daughter’ in Spanish. It’s kinda like a contraction of Mi Hija.  
> So. Chapter 9. It's...well, it's a little bit more complicated, at least from where my strengths in writing lie. So. This next update might be a bit in coming because I want to get it -right-. I know, I shouldn't stress so much, but I feel like this fic deserves it. also, thinking of adding an epilogue, buuut who knows, chapter 10 might get as long as this one. Honestly, I've never ended a story before, but I'll probably let you guys decide if I've left anything out after chapter 10.

**Author's Note:**

> If you liked this, please consider reading my story "Elegy for Elpis", set during B:pre-sequel centered around Timothy and exploring the development of the digi-jack AI's.  
> \---  
> Update: I've created a tumblr, mostly for my writing and collecting Borderlands things, but also to post updates between chapters and to hang out with everyone! it's https://queen-0f-pentacles.tumblr.com/  
> Stop by and say hi!


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